Indian news round-up

Engineer calls for severe punishment to guilty

Former Indian wicketkeeper, Farokh Engineer has said he doubts whether the measures taken by the BCCI to prevent match fixing will work. The only way to root out corruption is to severely punish those found guilty, he held. According to Engineer, if a player is really found guilty, his records should be struck off the books and he should never be allowed to play again.

Speaking to India Abroad News Service (IANS), Engineer said measures like banning the use of mobile phones are not sufficient to curb the evil as a player who is bent on cheating will probably use hotel phones instead. Engineer commented that during his playing days the payments were low and one could understand if a played is tempted to indulge in malpractices but these days with the players being well paid and a whole lot of appearance money flowing, it is hard to understand the temptations.

Gill calls for ending sponsorship of individuals in team sport

The president of the Indian Hockey Federation, KPS Gill, on Tuesday hit out against the sponsorship of individual players involved in team sport. He said that it facilitated an avenue for sponsors to "determine the selection of the team".

Speaking to India Today in New Delhi, Gill hinted that sponsors should sponsor teams and not individuals as has been the custom with regard to cricketers. Gill said that he envisaged the whole match-fixing problem to have cropped up due to the players seeing too much money.

Dwelling at length on the issue, Gill said that no one player should be singled out and treated above the rest, adding that his advice to the BCCI is to abolish sponsorship of individual players.

Fleming helps Kent to a facile win

Rahul Dravid scored a steady 36 off 49 balls as Kent posted a 64 run victory over Yorkshire in the National League Division One match at the St. Lawrence Ground in Canterbury on Tuesday.

Electing to bat, Kent openers Matthew Fleming (79) and Steve Marsh posted 76 for the first wicket. After the loss of Fleming, Rahul Dravid (36) and Paul Nixon (30) steered Kent to 217 with useful contributions.

In reply Yorkshire fell short of the target by a sizeable margin as Martin Saggers (3 for 22) and Fleming (3 for 19) ran through the top and lower order respectively. Dravid made his presence felt on the field with two catches to dismiss Gavin Hamilton and Antony McGrath.