Indian news round-up

It was a dream start for Yuvraj, says coach Sukhwinder Bawa
An allround match-winning performance of Yuvraj Singh which laid a perfect platform for an Indian win over the World Cup Champions Australia in the ICC KnockOut Tournament in Nairobi on Saturday evoked praise from his coach Sukhwinder Bawa.

Bawa when asked to comment on Yuvraj's performance said "it was a dream start by Yuvraj Singh. Had it been a century it would have been even better," quotes the Tribune in Chandigarh. A Sports Authority of India (SAI) coach, Sukhwinder said that Man-of-the Match award that the Chandigarh lad won was but a beginning of a glorious era. He said that Yuvraj had the potential to rewrite records.

ICC announces new rule to counter sledging
International Cricket Council (ICC) during a meeting of the match referees, chaired by former Indian captain Sunil Gavaskar has decided to adopt a new five run penalty rule for sledging and unsportsmanly behavior on the field. The Press Trust of India (PTI) reported on Saturday that it has also asked the match referees to be more strict on the issue.

Apart from the new sledging rule the ICC has agreed in principle for the equal distribution of matches among the members on the ICC Panel. In an effort to clean up the game of the mal practices the ICC has requested the match referees, players, umpires and all other officials of the concerned boards to sign a declaration to determine their knowledge about match fixing in the concerned series.

Rohtak to host 10 matches in 2000-2001 season
The secretary of the District Cricket Association (DCA), Aman Kumar, said on Saturday that Rohtak will get to host 10 cricket matches during various tournaments during the forthcoming 2000-2001 domestic season. Aman Kumar, said that the Haryana Cricket Association (HCA) has allotted all the matches except the Haryana-Delhi Ranji Trophy match to Rohtak.

The DCA secretary said that the association has been assigned the task of organising three matches of the North Zone Cooch Behar (Under-19) Tournament, two matches of under-22 league, three matches of Vijay Merchant Trophy and two matches of under-14 North Zone league.

He said that out of these 10 matches eight are to be played at the Maharaja Aggarsain Stadium and the other two games at the Satya Priya Cricket Academy. The academy will host the Haryana versus Delhi Vijay Merchant tie scheduled to be held from November 29 to December 1 and the Haryana-Jammu and Kashmir match to be held on October 29.

UPCA announces Ranji Team Probables
The secretary of the Uttar Pradesh Cricket Association (UPCA), Jyoti Bajpai on Sunday announced the 35 probables for the forthcoming 2000-2001 Ranji Trophy season. Gyanendra Pandey has been named the captain while Rizwan Shamshed will be the vice-captain after the trails held at the Kamala Club Ground in Kanpur from October 5 to 7. The final team is to be selected after the camp to be held at the Green Park in Kanpur.

The Probables: Gynandra Pandey (captain), Rizwan Shamshed (vice captain), Saurab Shukla, Jyoti Yadav, Mohd. Kaif, Mohd. Saif, Manoj Mudgal, AW Zaidi, Ubaid Kamal, Akhil Tyagi, Parvinder Singh, Shalab Srivastava, Mritunjai Tripati, Pankaj Tewari, Ratnesh Mishra, Musi Raza, Nazir Ali, Sanjeev Jakhmola, Rohit Prakash, Ashu Sharma, Ashwini Tyagi, Jitendra Pandey, Sunil Sharma, Parvinder Singh, Javed Anwar, Sandip Mehrotra, Manoj Singh, Sandip Pandey, Rakesh, Dhananjai Singh, Arun Pandey, Yogesh, Amba Prasad, Rakesh Badoria and Anand Tripati.