Indian news round-up

The vice president of the Chandigarh Cricket Association (CCA), GS Banga on Sunday termed the decision taken by the board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) to bar it's former president IS Bindra from attending the Board meetings for two years as prejudiced.

Press Trust of India (PTI) reported that Banga in a press release said "The decision of BCCI, barring its former president IS Bindra for two years from attending any meeting of BCCI, seems to be under prejudice." Banga added that Bindra was barred even when he offered to apologise if his comments had hurt anybody.

Banga said that Bindra's contribution towards the game in the country and specially in Punjab was unparalleled and added that Bindra during his term as president of the Board had considerably improved its financial health.

The case relating to former Indian captain Mohd. Azharuddin who filed a suit against the BCCI, its president AC Muthiah and former CBI joint director K Madhavan against the imposition of a life ban on him by the BCCI has been posted for hearing to March 7 following a plea by Azharuddin's counsel SK Sarma. The second additional chief Judge J Shyamsundar Rao posted the hearing on the case after accepting the counter affidavits filed by the BCCI President and BCCI's enquiry commissioner Madhavan.

BCCI president AC Muthiah's advocate K Suryanarayana who filed the counter affidavit justifying the ban on the Hyderabadi batsman said "the suit filed by the former captain was not maintainable in the first place." Suryanarayana also described that some of the specific charges made against Muthiah as "uncharitable and uncalled for."

Advocate Sanjay Joshi, who filed the affidavit on behalf of Madhavan, said the enquiry conducted by his client against Azharuddin was 'fair and impartial' and denied charges made by the cricketer against Madhavan.

The Tamil Nadu Cricket Association (TNCA) in a press release on Sunday stated that Robin Singh has been named the skipper of the Tamil Nadu team for the forthcoming pre-quarter final match against Delhi slated to be played in Chennai from March 10 to 14.

The TNCA have named a 15-member squad for the match including four stand-byes in Vikram Kumar, L Balaji, R Satish and S Ramkumar. K Bharat Kumar is the coach of the team.

The team: Robin Singh (captain), S Sriram (vice captain), S Badrinath, S Sharath, C Hemant Kumar, S Mahesh, WD Balaji Rao, JR Madanagopal, Rajat Bhatia, T Kumaran, Reuben Paul, MR Srinivas, Aashish Kapoor, Vidyuth Sivaramakrishnan, S Vasanth Saravanan.

The Cricket Association of Bengal (CAB) has named the former Indian opener Devang Gandhi as the skipper of the Bengal team for their forthcoming Ranji Trophy pre-quarter final match against Baroda. The match is to be played at Baroda from March 10 to 14.

The squad: Devang Gandhi (captain), Deep Dasgupta (wicketkeeper), Alokendu Lahiri, Nikhil Haldipur, Rohan Gavaskar, Srikant Kalyani, Utpal Chatterjee, Arindam Das, Sabir Ali, Shib Shankar Paul, Laxmi Ratan Shukla, Ajoy Das, Pradipta Mazumder and Safi Ahmed.