Indian news round-up

The secretary of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), JY Lele on Thursday in Baroda announced the venues for the five one-day internationals between India and Zimbabwe.

Lele said that the first one-dayer is to be played at Cuttack on December 2, the second at Ahmedabad on December 5, third at Jodhpur on December 8, fourth at Kanpur on December 11 and fifth and final onedayer would be played at Rajkot on December 14.

Apart from the five one-dayers, Zimbabwe are slated to take on India in two Test matches at Delhi from November 18 to 22 and Nagpur from November 25 to 29. The visitors kick off their tour with a three day warm-up match against National Cricket Academy at Indore from November 8 to 10.

Press Trust of India (PTI) reported on Thursday that the secretary of the Bihar Cricket Association (BCA), BN Singh has been named Manager of the Indian team for the one-off Test against Bangladesh at the Bangabandhu stadium in Dhaka from November 10 to 14.

Speaking to the agency at Jamshedpur, Singh said ``It is really a significant achievement for me to be the manager of Indian team for the historic Test match,'' and added ``I have good relations with most of the players. I don't think there would be any difficulty in carrying out the job.''

PTI also said that Singh is expected to join the Indian team at Calcutta on November 6 and accompany the team to Dhaka the next day. Singh earlier served as observer for a one-day international between India and West Indies in 1992-93 and later during the India- South Africa Test in 1995.

Former Indian Test cricketer and member of Parliament, Kirti Azad on Thursday questioned the Central Bureau of Investigation's (CBI) report on the match fixing scandal saying that the agency had submitted the report before completing the inquiry.

Azad, in a written comment, said that the CBI report was confusing, according to Press Trust of India (PTI). Azad also inquired ``How can a few players be exonerated and some found guilty before the completion of the investigations?''

Azad alleged that there had been an arbitary and subjective assessment of the depositions given by various persons and the confusion arose because the CBI filed the charges on the basis of circumstancial evidence. ``In such a case how have they delivered a verdict on the players?'', he asked.

Former Indian Test umpire Piloo Reporter has reacted strongly to the allegations levelled by the book maker Mukesh Gupta that he had been paid for providing an assessment of a Test between India and England in 1993.

Quoting the former umpire, Press Trust of India (PTI) said ``I really do not know why they are dragging the umpire's name in the matchfixing scandal,'' and added ``I am absolutely shocked and in our days it (match-fixing) was definitely not happening.''

Reporter said that the matches in the India-England series were very keenly fought by both the teams and the media of the respective countries had praised the standards of umpiring. He said ``as far as I'm concerned, I and S Venkataraghavan did a very good job and I have nothing more to say.''