Indian news round-up

The agency reported that while the MCA was attempting to give the post to a cricketer, former Indian captain Ajit Wadekar apparently coaxed the minister into contesting for the post and also assuring him support of 323 voting members. This came as a shock to the Association as they were expecting to hand over the post to the former Indian captain.

The move to appoint a cricketer for the post came into focus after last year's election witnessed power sharing between Joshi's group and that of Ratnakar Shetty.

The Secretary of the Uttar Pradesh Cricket Association (UPCA) Jyoti Bajpai, on Friday announced the list of 31 under-16 probables for the forthcoming 2000-2001 season. Uttar Pradesh kick off the season with the Central Zone Vijay Merchant Trophy league match against Madhya Pradesh from November 23 to 25.

The probables: Rahat Ilahi, Tahir Abbas, Shivakanth Shukla, Abhinav Chaturvedi, Ravikanth Shukla, Suresh Kumar Raina, Aris Alam, Gaurav Tyagi, Alok Singh, Probal Pratap Singh, Sachin Yadav, Shikhar Bisnoi, Praveen Gupta, Abhinash Yadav, Ashutosh Bhatnagar, Rakesh Kumar, Mohd Amir, Vishal Francis, Deepu Yadav, Deependra Pandey, Namah Sharma, Puneet Kapoor, Abhishek Tewari, Devendra Singh, Pradeep Sachan, Tarun Sirohi, Tarun Srivastava, Mohd Waqeel, Rahul Sharma, Sandeep Pandey, Faisal Raees.

Saurashtra's under-14 team have been declared winners of this year's edition of the Bal Mahadulkar Trophy which was played in Pune from November 6 to 10. Saurashtra at the end of their four matches shared the top spot along with Baroda with 6 points from three wins.

Saurashtra were deemed winners since they had defeated Baroda in their league match. Hosts Maharashtra came third along with Mumbai with four points each from two wins and two losses in their four matches. Gujarat were placed at the bottom of the table with no points from four matches.