Indian news round-up

Former Indian captain Bishen Singh Bedi and and wicketkeeper Kiran More are among the five former cricketers invited by the Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) to coach its national side in the departments of spin bowling and wicketkeeping respectively. The other invitees are Mushtaq Mohammad for batting, Roshan Mahanama for fielding and Mike Procter for pace bowling.

Speaking to an Indian newspaper from London, the general secretary of the BCB, Ashraf-ul Huq said ``In keeping with the arrangement worked out with the ICC before we got Test status, five coaches will work with our boys before the 2000-2001 season begins in earnest.''

The coaches are to spend a fortnight each in Bangladesh in order to interact with both the national team and the BCB junior team.

Minister of State for Finance Dhananjay Kumar said on Wednesday that the ministry is to initiate investigations into tax evasions by Indian cricketers.

Speaking to a news agency in New Delhi, Kumar said that the investigations were initiated based on informations received by it and that as part of the investigations the ministry has issued notices to certain Mumbai based cricketers for not paying their taxes.

Indian captain Sourav Ganguly scored only five runs as Lancashire suffered a 69 run defeat at the hands of Yorkshire in the National League Division One match at Old Trafford on Tuesday.

Set to score 226 for a win, Lancashire were off to a shaky start when they lost opener Mark Chilton off the second ball and Ganguly for five. Then John Crawley (71) and Graham Lloyd carried on the fight for Lancashire before one of the four light towers went out. On resumption Lancashire were left with a new target of 208 from 40 overs. Yorkshire spinners James Middlebrook and Darren Lehmann bundled out the rest of the Lancashire line up.

The two other Indians playing around the county circuit, Anil Kumble and Rahul Dravid were not seen in action on Tuesday.