Indian news round-up

The Australian coach, John Buchanan on Monday expressed dissatisfaction over his team's batting in the first innings of the just concluded three day match against India A in Nagpur. However he felt happy with the bowling performance by the Australians.

Speaking to Press Trust of India after the match at Nagpur, Buchanan said "I think our bowlers particularly off spinner Colin Miller and medium pacer Jason Gillespie bowled quite well." Buchanan added "We wanted to have a look at the top order batting of India-A, particularly V V S Laxman before the first Test at Mumbai."

Speaking of the next three day game in Mumbai, Buchanan said "It will be a good exposure for our players to get used to the heat and bounce and turn of the wicket. The sooner our boys get acclimatised to the climate here the better."

As part of the Board of Control for Cricket in India's (BCCI) plan to broaden the access to state of the art coaching techniques, a three day seminar for cricket coaches began in Bangalore on Monday. Former BCCI president Raj Singh Dungarpur who inaugurated the seminar felt that the quality of coaching resources need to be standardised across the country.

The seminar is being addressed by Australian Cricket Academy chief Rodney Marsh, his colleagues at the ACA, Wayne Phillips and Brian Taber and physiotherapist Sandy Gordon. John Wright who also spoke to the gathering on the first day highlighted the responsibilities of a coach and how individual players could channelise their abilities into a collective effort.

The meeting is being attended by 70 members of the coaching fraternity. A galaxy of former Indian Test players, including Bishan Bedi, E A S Prasanna, Brijesh Patel, Syed Kirmani, Kiran More, Balwinder Sandhu, Arshad Ayub, Lalchand Rajput, Bharat Reddy and Surinder Khanna are among them.

Former Indian skipper Kapil Dev has turned down an offer to play a limited overs match between the Indian and Australian teams that contested the famous tied Test in Chennai in September 1986. Speaking to Press Trust of India (PTI), Kapil Dev indicated that he had nothing to do with the game any more.

"I don't want to wear whites again. I have retired from the game. It is goodbye." he said. Meanwhile Sunil Gavaskar added that former Indian skipper Mohd. Azharuddin will not be a member of the Indian cricket team for the reunion. Australian skipper Steve Waugh will be the only member of the visiting team to miss out on the festivities.

Speaking to PTI, Gavaskar said the match is to be played at the Guru Nanak College Grounds in Chennai on March 17, the eve of the third and final Test between the present Indian and Australian teams. Gavaskar added that umpires Vikram Raju and D N Dotiwala who officiated the historic match would don the white coats once more while K Subramaniam, the official scorer then, would do the scoring.

The teams that played in the tied Test:

India: Kapil Dev (captain), Sunil Gavaskar, Krish Srikkanth, Mohinder Amarnath, Mohd Azharuddin, Ravi Shastri, Chandrakant Pandit, Kiran More (wicketkeeper), Chetan Sharma, Shivlal Yadav and Maninder Singh.

Australia: Allan Border, David Boon, Geoff Marsh, Dean Jones, Greg Ritchie, Steve Waugh, Ray Bright, Tim Zoehrer (wicketkeeper), Greg Mathews, Craig McDermott and Bruce Reid.