Indian news round-up

PCB chief still confident India will tour Pakistan:Despite the Indian government's decision to cancel the cricket team's tour of Pakistan, the Pakistan Cricket Board is confident that the tour will materialize as the Indian Cricket Board is "very keen to bring the Indian team to Pakistan," according to PCB chairman Tauqeer Zia.

"I had a meeting with former BCCI president Raj Singh Dungarpur in Pakistan and he sounded very keen to bring the Indian team," Zia told the Gulf News daily in Dubai, adding that he never talked about suspending India or imposing sanctions against them.

Zia said that Dungarpur cut short his official visit to Pakistan and returned to Delhi to persuade the Government to reconsider its decision of banning the Indian tour of Pakistan in January next year. "I am convinced the Indian Cricket Board still has hopes of coming to Pakistan," he said. Zia said Dungarpur also had talks with with the Indian High Commissioner in Islamabad Vijay Nambiar before leaving for Delhi.

"I only said Pakistan are going to lose so much money and we should be compensated. I do not think sanctions and suspensions are good for the game" he said but stressed that Pakistan will have to review their stance regarding playing India after they called off the tour.

Zia, who was in Dubai to attend the Asian Cricket Council meeting, said with India's decision not to tour Pakistan the Asian Test series and the Asia Cup will also be jeopardized because both the events are going to take place in Pakistan.

Meanwhile, The Daily News of Karachi on Wednesday quoted an unnamed PCB official as saying Pakistan was not keen to get into any event which featured India. The newspaper also quoted sources as saying the PCB was not very keen to host Bangladesh in place of the Indians for a Test series as it was not a financially viable venture.

Tactical differences between the captain and the coach do surface now and then but it is quite uncommon. A rare occurrence was on Wednesday when skipper Saurav Ganguly and new coach John Wright differed publicly on the composition of the Indian cricket team.

After India defeated Zimbabwe in the first Test by seven wickets in New Delhi, Ganguly was questioned about the exclusion of the new find, medium fast bowler Zaheer Khan from the playing eleven. The captain responded by saying, "We had decided to play only four bowlers. Agarkar bowls better reverse swing than Zaheer. In Indian conditions, where you get a lot of reverse swing, we thought Agarkar would be more of an asset," he said.

However, Wright said the team should have five main bowlers to give "proper balance" to the side. "Ideally, a team should have five frontline bowlers. And in any team, at least one from No 1 to 6 should be a good all-rounder. From now on, I will be working towards developing a balanced team both for the Tests and one-day internationals," Wright said.

The Railways Sports Control Board will organise the Central Zone Ranji Trophy one day league matches at New Delhi on the original dates - December 6 to 11.

According to Jyoti Bajpai, joint secretary, BCCI and convenor, Central Zone, both Rajasthan and Vidarbha had expressed their inability to conduct these matches as they were busy with the preparation of the second Test and the one day matches against Zimbabwe. The Central Zone one day matches were originally scheduled to be conducted by the Uttar Pradesh Cricket Association at Kanpur. But the UPCA had expressed their inability to conduct the competition as it had to conduct the fourth one day match at the same venue on December 11.

The schedule: December 6: MP vs UP and Vidarbha vs Rajasthan. December 7: MP vs Rajasthan and Vidarbha vs Railways. December 8: UP vs Railways and Vidarbha vs Rajasthan. December 10: UP vs Vidarbha and MP vs Railways. December 11: UP vs Rajasthan and MP vs Vidarbha.

Dharmendra Singh has been named to lead Bengal in their match against Assam in the East Zone Under-22 tournament at Krishnagar. The match will be played from November 28 to 30. Samar Chakraborty is the coach and Abhijit Sikdar will be donning the gloves.

The team: Dharmendra Singh (capt), Tirtha Roy, Swapan Das, Ranabir Nath, Dibyendu Chakraborty, Kushal Dey, Manoj Shaw, Abhijit Sikdar (wk), Sib Sagar Singh, Sandip Halder, Abdul Masood, Ranadeb Bose, Subhra Dip Ganguly and Sumit Mishra.