Indian news round-up

The Working committee of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) is scheduled to meet in New Delhi on May 19. The meeting will review and discuss the meetings of the officials with the ICC president Jagmohan Dalmiya and the sports ministry last month relating to match fixing and betting.

Apart from match fixing, the working committee is expected to discuss the board's service contracts with players and performance related pay, nominate a medical panel to determine the physical fitness of players. The committee is likely to review the existing structure of domestic tournaments during the meeting. A proposal for doing away with the Super League system in the Ranji Trophy will also be taken up.

Former BCCI vice-president N Venkata Rao has said in an interview to an Indian newspaper that he advised the board to 'do away' with former Indian allrounder Manoj Prabhakar. Rao said he had observed that the attitude of Prabhakar was 'casual and non co-operative' and he sent a report on the same to the board to act. Rao was the administrative manager of the Indian team to New Zealand in 1995.

Rao said he sent the report to the then BCCI president IS Bindra. But no action was taken. He said "had the BCCI authorities taken care of my observations against Prabhakar soon after Indian team's tour against New Zealand in 1995, things would not have come to this stage today. It really surprises me as to why the former BCCI president chose to keep my report confidential and did not share (it) with other members of the Board." On the allegation on Kapil Dev, Rao said "the unsubstantiated allegations against such a dedicated player needs condemnation from all quarters."

Two Scotland Yard detectives Martin Hawkins and Bruce Horbury returned home on Saturday after meeting officials of the BCCI in Mumbai. They were in India for the last five days gathering information and probing the allegations made by England player Chris Lewis. They met ex-BCCI president Raj Singh Dungarpur, executive secretary Sharad Diwadkar and other board officials in this connection.

In an interesting move India's premier investigation agency Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has sought information from the players and public to help them in the match-fixing scandal. They have also asked the press to part with any suspicious information on any aspect of the game. They have said the identity of the informers would be confidential.