Indian news round-up

Board to abide by Government's decision, says Muthiah: The president of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), AC Muthiah said on Thursday that the Board would abide by the Government's decision to cancel the proposed Indian tour to Pakistan early next year.

Speaking to PTI from Singapore, Muthiah categorically stated ``such decisions are taken by the Government in national interest and the Board has to abide by it.'' The Indian government had yesterday cancelled the Indian team's visit to Pakistan stating that it would be 'inappropriate' to go ahead with the tour.

India were to visit Pakistan for a Test series after a 11 year gap. The last tour to the neighbours was in 1989 under the captaincy of former Indian opener K Srikkanth.

Former Director of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), Joginder Singh on Wednesday commended the Bureau on the report into the match fixing scandal but added that it cannot be used to proceed against the tainted players since it has no legal sanctity.

Speaking to reporters in Ferozepore, Singh said it would be wrong to say that those players who were not indicted in the report were not guilty. He alleged that there were some, who despite their involvement in match-fixing, were moving freely because nobody dared to say anything about them.

On the ban slapped by the BCCI on the tainted players, Singh said that the Board should have taken more punitive measures against those found guilty and felt that action should have been taken much earlier as reports of match-fixing were floating in the air for quite some time.

The Orissa Cricket Association has named Rashmi Ranjan Parida to lead the state Ranji Trophy team for the East Zone league match against Bihar scheduled to be played at Jamshedpur from November 19 to 22. Parida has been handed the responsibility after opener and skipper SS Das was included in the Indian team for the forthcoming two Test series against Zimbabwe.

The team: Rashmi Ranjan Parida (captain), Pradeep Das, Suresh Kumar, B.B.C.C. Mohapatra, Pravanjan Mullick, Sanjay Raul, P.Jayachandra, Sanjay Satpathy, Ajay Barik, Jagannath Das, Bipin Singh, Debasish Mohanty, Goutam Gopal and Yashpal Mohanty.