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Amarnath, Patil in the reckoning for top post
Lanka proposes 5 ODIs in Aug
Akram upset with PCB for ignoring Shoaib
Smith leads SA to 8-wicket win
MDCA ‘forced’ to shift
under-17 tourney venue
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CAG report raps Sports Ministry
Sunny Sidhu wins Desert Storm Rally
Atwal falters; Garcia in lead
Choi grabs title; Shiv Kapur 12th
Rana nominated to
commonwealth board
Cheema to take part in Asian Championship
DLTA opens centre
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Amarnath, Patil in the reckoning for top post
Kolkata, May 8 BCCI President Ranbir Singh Mahendra, however, announced that efforts were on to get in touch with a few other former internationals, all from abroad, before the final selection was made. “You will get to know the name of the new coach by June 15,” he said while briefing newspersons on the deliberations at the two-hour meeting of the six-member committee formed to finalise the name for the top job. Along with Amarnath and Patil, former Australian Test players Greg Chappell and Tom Moody have also been shortlisted in the maiden meeting of the committee, chaired by Mahendra at a five-star hotel here. But Mahendra refused to divulge the names of the other internationals the BCCI was planning to sound out before making its final choice. The candidates would be called for an interview, the date of which would be finalised after considering their availability, he said. The high-profile
committee also comprised former Indian captains Sunil Gavaskar, S Venkatraghavan, Ravi Shastri and former BCCI chief Jagmohan Dalmiya, with Board Secretary S K Nair the convener. The new coach would be in the saddle at least till the next World Cup in the West Indies in 2007, Mahendra said. Answering a query, he said the committee shortlisted the four names by taking into consideration the candidates’ resumes and their performance as coach in the past. The BCCI chief said though neither Amarnath not Patil submitted their resumes, the Board decided to call them for the interview because of their record as coach. Amarnath, famed for bagging the man of the match awards in both the semifinal and the final of the 1983 World Cup, has earlier coached Bangladesh and Morocco. Patil, a flashy batsman and a key member of the 1983 squad, is a former coach of the Indian team. He also coached Kenya to the World Cup semifinal in 2003 and been in charge of the India A side. Mahendra said the committee also considered most of the other former Indian cricketers who had done coaching stints. Chappell, one of the greatest batsmen from Down Under, has a very impressive Test average of 53.86, besides taking 47 wickets. Compared to the other three, Moody had a lacklustre Test career, scoring only 456 runs in eight Tests. However, he was more
successful in the shorter version of the game, and represented his country in two World Cups. Moody, armed with a level four coaching certificate, is the Director of Cricket of Worcestershire for the past four years, besides having worked with different age group trainees in the Australian Cricket Academy. Asked whether the candidates would have to give some sort of presentation before the committee, Mahendra said, “We will fully satisfy ourselves of the suitability of the candidates before zeroing in on one name”. Mahindra, however, said the BCCI had not held any discussions with the present Indian players so far on the issue. The post fell vacant after New Zealander John Wright left three weeks ago on the completion of his term after being with the team for four and a half years.
— PTI |
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Lanka proposes 5 ODIs in Aug
Colombo, May 8 India will join the West Indies and the hosts Sri Lanka in a tri-series August 2-14 before Sri Lanka travel to India two days later for five more one-dayers, an official said on Sunday.
— AFP |
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Akram upset with PCB for ignoring Shoaib
Islamabad, May 8 Backing the beleaguered bowler, Akram said the speedster should have been included in the side for his match winning abilities and in his absence Pakistan would struggle in the West Indies. "Shoaib is a match winner and a quality fast bowler. He should be in the team," Akram said. "If he has any disciplinary, commitment or attitude problems, it is the job of the board and team management to sort it out. But just on this basis you cannot keep on ignoring him." The former all-rounder said Shoaib was quite hard-working on the field and the management should know how to handle him. "He played under my captaincy a lot and it is true he has a bit of an excessive lifestyle. But on the field frankly speaking he tried hard and was quite successful. Because we knew how to use him. "My contention is that he should have been picked for the West Indies tour and if Inzamam-ul-Haq and Bob Woolmer have any problems with his attitude and commitment they can easily enough just send him back home. That would be a lesson for him. But it is the team that loses out if use is not made of his skills," Akram was quoted as saying in local daily 'The News'. Akram hit out at the system of checking the fitness of pace bowlers in Pakistan when he was told that Shoaib was also not considered for selection on the ground of fitness. "Look I have been through this phase and believe these people on the medical panels they don't have a clue of the chemistry or fitness requirements for a pace bowler. "Someone like Shoaib Akhtar who is an out-and-out fast bowler needs to be handled differently fitness wise. It is a folly to judge his fitness on the criteria set for others," said Akram. "He has put on some weight but it is natural that when a fast bowler come backs from an injury he puts on weight. The more he keeps on playing competitive matches he gets better. I don't think Shoaib would have been able to play in some of the domestic matches if he had not been fit at all”.
— PTI |
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Smith leads SA to 8-wicket win
Kingston, May 8 Chasing 254 to win mostly under overcast skies yesterday, South Africa hit the jackpot in the 45th over, when Jacques Kallis hit Dwayne Bravo for the last of his two boundaries straight to give the visitors a 1-0 lead in the best-of-five series. Scoreboard West Indies Gayle c Gibbs b Ntini 26 Hinds b Ntini 5 Sarwan st Boucher Lara c Dippenaar b Nel 8 Chanderpaul c Smith b Langeveldt 46 Bravo c Nel b Ntini 14 Browne not out 9 Bradshaw c Pollock Collins st Boucher Collymore b Langeveldt 0 Extras
(lb6, w9, nb5) 20 Total (all out, Fall of wickets:
1-29, 2-38, 3-56, 4-162, 5-191, 6-232, 7-241, 8-244, 9-253. Bowling:
Pollock 9-0-51-1; Ntini 10-2-46-4; Langeveldt 9.5-2-41-2; Nel 9-0-43-2; Kallis 5-0-26-0; Smith 6-0-40-0. South Africa Smith c
Browne Dippenaar b Hinds 56 Kallis not out 51 Gibbs not out 40 Extras
(lb1, nb4) 5 Total (2 wickets,
45 overs) 255 Fall of wickets: 1-131, 2-190. Bowling:
Collins 9-0-57-0, Bradshaw 9-0-38-0, Collymore 7-0-46-0, Gayle 7-0-34-0, Bravo 4-0-34-0, Hinds 6-0-25-1, Smith 3-0-21-1.
— AFP |
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MDCA ‘forced’ to shift
under-17 tourney venue
Sundernagar, May 8 As per information received yesterday, when the player assembled at the local ground under the control of Maharaja Laxman Sen Memorial College, they found a notice fixed on the gate saying that they could not use the ground as the authorities had decided to do some maintenance work. Mandi cricket association had been using this ground for the last two years. The MDCA was earlier forced to shift its activities to Sundernagar as the authorities refused them to use the Paddle Ground at Mandi. According to Mr Ajay Rana, President of the
MDCA, this was done at the behest of Mr. Ram Lal Thakur, Minister of Sports, Himachal Pradesh. Talking to mediapersons here, he said the government had pressurized the college authorities to withdraw the permission for the use of the ground. He said the district cricket association had been maintaining the ground for the last two years but the 'cheap politics' being played by the Congressmen in order to grab the Himachal Pradesh Cricket Association was the main reason for not allowing them to use the ground for the under-17 tournament. He said as per the schedule, the under 17 tournament was fixed from May 9 to May 30 and the first match was to be played on May 9 between Mandi and Shimla. The match has now been shifted to Dharamsala. He further stated that in the past when the MDCA was denied permission to use historic Paddle ground matches had to be organized at Nadaun in Hamirpur district. He appealed to the Chief Minister, Mr Virbhadra Singh, not to drag politics in to the sports as it would mar the future of cricket players in the state. The members of Mandi cricket team today boarded a bus for Dharamsala. Players looked annoyed with the incident and held the Sports Minister, Mr Ram Lal Thakur, guilty. According to them, he was behind the incident. However, the college authorities maintained the permission was denied due to the maintenance of the ground and not at the behest of the government. Mr Dile Ram , President of the district unit of the BJP has criticised the attitude of Congressmen and, according to him, they were dragging politics into the game. |
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CAG report raps Sports Ministry
New Delhi, May 8 This observation of the CAG has assumed importance in the context of the Sports Ministry's and sports federations' lament that they are always short of funds due to the apathy of the government. The CAG report notes that the government had failed to recover the unspent grant to the tune of Rs 5,82 crores for 22 months, and the Organising Committee retained Rs 1.06 crore (March 2004), even after 30 months of postponement of the games. The "First Afro-Asian Games 2001 Organising Committee" was formed in May 2001 for organising the games in Delhi in November 2001, but the games were indefinitely postponed following the terrorist attack at the World Trade Centre in the USA, on September 11, 2001. The Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports agreed in principle to sanction a grant not exceeding Rs 20 crore payable in two instalments to the organising committee for the conduct of the games. The Ministry subsequently released Rs 10 crore in June 2001 as the first instalment of the grant subject to the condition that the unutilised amount would be refunded by the grantee with the least possible delay, and not later than 15 days from the date of the issue of the letter from the Ministry, calling for the refund of the amount. The sanction letter also stipulated that unspent balance, if any, would be refunded by the grantee before the close of the financial year. But after the government postponed the games indefinitely in September 2001, the Ministry in October 2001 called for refund of the unspent balance along with accounts of expenditure utilisation certificate in terms of the conditions of the grant. After issuing a reminder in December 2001, no follow up action was taken. But after the matter was pointed out in the audit report in February 2003, the Ministry asked the organising committee to refund the unspent balance and furnish the details of the expenditure along with the utilisation certificate. However, the accounts of expenditure and utilisation certificate up to March 2003 as furnished by the Organising Committee revealed that the committee spent Rs 4.18 crore on various activities relating to the conduct of the games and kept the unspent balance of Rs 5.82 crore in a saving bank account which had accumulated to Rs 6.40 crore upto July 2003. The organising committee refunded Rs 6 crore in August 2003 after retaining Rs 1.06 crore to discharge their liability towards payment of audit fee and organising the final meeting of the organising committee for approval of account and its dissolution. The CAG report has observed that the organising committee had spent only Rs 2.12 crore upto October 2001, and after postponement of the games, a further Rs 1.31 crore was spent upto March, 2004 on purchase of furniture, renovation of camp office (read the official residence of the chairperson), telephone bills, meetings, hospitality and entertainment and office expenses etc. The CAG did not find the Ministry's reply tenable about the delay in the recovery of the funds on the plea that the organising committee was hopeful that the Government would hold the games at a later date, and that the organising committed had not been dissolved. |
Raikkonen triumphs; Narain finishes 13th
Barcelona, May 8 Raikkonen, in his McLaren-Mercedes-Benz, blitzed the field at the Circuit de Catalunya with a demonstration of near-perfect pace and flawless driving as he took the lead from the fifth pole position of his career and pulled away virtually unchallenged to claim his first win this year and third of his career.
His last win, and McLaren’s, came at the Belgian Grand Prix last year. Raikkonen’s success ruined Spanish hopes of seeing the early-season leader of the world drivers’ championship Alonso, 23, extend his winning streak to four races. Alonso, after a tough race, held on to second place for Renault. Italian Jarno Trulli, in a Toyota, finished third to consolidate his hold on second place behind Alonso in the title race. After five races, Alonso now has 44 points ahead of Trulli on 25 with Raikkonen up to third from ninth with 17 points. Ralf Schumacher was fourth in the second Toyota, less than a second behind his team-mate, with Italian Giancarlo Fisichella fifth for Renault, after clocking the fastest lap on the final lap of the race. Australian Mark Webber finished sixth for Williams ahead of McLaren driver Colombian Juan-Pablo Montoya and Briton David Coulthard, who maintained his good points collection record, by finishing with one for eighth for the Red Bull team. Tiago Monteiro upstaged his Jordan team-mate Karthikeyan as the Indian could not improve on his 13th position on the starting grid. Both Jordan drivers finished three laps behind the eventual winner Raikkonen, with the Portugese Monteiro taking the 12th slot and leading Karthikeyan for the first time in the season. It was another disastrous day for Ferrari with defending and seven-time world champion German Michael Schumacher being forced to retire after suffering two punctures and his team-mate Brazilian Rubens Barrichello among the cars lapped by the flying Finn on his way to a pointless ninth place. The 66-lap race began with the grandstands as blue as the skies, an estimated 15,000 fans, clad in blue t-shirts and wrapped in similar flags, from Alonso’s home region of the Asturias in northern Spain having made the trip across the Iberian peninsula to Catalonia. Local newspapers reported that this influx, coupled with thousands more from other parts of Spain, had ensured not only a sell-out crowd of 115,000, but a profit of more than 65,000 euros for the local commercial and tourist market. Every hotel was sold out. No wonder the King of Spain, Juan Carlos, was smiling as he strolled the grid. Other celebrity visitors included British supermodel Naomi Campbell. When the lights went out, Alonso made an excellent start from his third place on the grid and moved up to second ahead of Mark Webber’s Williams. Raikkonen reeled off a series of fastest laps to pull clear of not only Alonso, but the entire field.
— AFP, UNI |
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Sunny Sidhu wins Desert Storm Rally
Jaipur, May 8 Sunny improved his last year’s performance in the competition to take the top spot while Jasbir Singh Randhawa and Raju Verma finished second and third, respectively. In the motorbike category, which made its debut in this edition, Nipendra Jassi took the top honours while Nitin Singh and Abhishek Mishra bagged the second and third spots, respectively. Wadia had a miraculous escape yesterday, when trying to speed at a sandy and bumpy section at Motisar, about 8 km from Pushkar, could not control his Gypsy which made four somersaults in the air and fell upside down after hitting a branch of a tree some 15 feet above the ground. Wadia and his co-driver Satinder Singh, however, escaped unhurt in the incident and decided to finish the race. They gave up only when one of the front tyres came out after restarting. Wadia showed tremendous guts and sporting spirit by deciding to compete unofficially in the final section of the rally. Sunny, who had a slender lead over Wadia after the completion of the first two days, looked impressive from the word go and had taken almost an unassailable lead with a penalty point of 1:36:33 seconds at the end of day three of the competition. The final day’s competitive section started from the fast and packed sand section in Bassi to Baroon, about 30 km from Pushkar, and the rally had to cover another 130-km non-competitive section before culminating here. The rally started in the rocky terrain at the Bhatti Mines in Surajkund on day one, travelled across sandy areas in Renwal, Nawa, Sambhar and Kishangarh on day two, and burnt tyres in Motisar, Richmalia, Shivpura, Bhatsuri, Mewaria and Pichauli on day three. At the end, it was yet another domination of Gypsy at the rally as 18 of them competed, while only five Esteem and two Balenos took part in the competition. The damp squib of the event was the cancellation of scenic Sambhar Lake section due to untimely rain in the area.
— UNI |
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Atwal falters; Garcia in lead
Charlotte, May 8 The lead continued to stay with Sergio Garcia, who played some terrific golf for five-under 67 and extended his lead to a whopping six strokes over Fijian Vijay Singh. Atwal opened with a string of six pars and then birdied seventh and eighth giving rise to the hope that he might climb higher in standings. But on the ninth, he double-bogeyed and then came three more bogeys on tenth, 12th and 18th and he was way down once again. The Indian's driving accuracy was down to a poor seven per cent as he hardly found a green. Still for Atwal the consolation was that he could make every cut and force his way into the 2006 card. Garcia was in menacing form as he decimated a world class field as he made eight birdies in his first 15 holes and ended with a 67 that put him six strokes clear of the field.
— PTI |
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Choi grabs title; Shiv Kapur 12th
Seoul, May 8 But the man taking away the honours much to joy of the crowd was local hero, Choi Kyung-ju who cemented his position as Asia’s finest golfing export to the USA. He fired a last round 69 to total 13-under 275 and completed a five-stroke victory over Fred Couples and Andrew Buckle who tied for second at eight-under 280. For the two-time US PGA Tour winner it was his third Asian Tour victory in his home country. Choi picked up a cheque for just under $ 100,000. Kapur, who two-and-a-half years ago won the Asian Games gold medal here in Korea, was undone by a third round 76. He shot 69-70-76-71 over four days. “As always, you feel like you played better than you scored. I was one-under through six holes and three-putted seven and three-putted eight and that derailed me. I got it back with a birdie on nine and played solidly on the back nine, but did not make too many birdies,” said Kapur. “I am happy with the way I am playing, but on the greens I could have been two or three better and that would have made a world of difference. I just have to learn how to save more shots out there.”
— PTI |
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Rana nominated to
commonwealth board
Chandigarh, May 8 This information was conveyed to him by Mr Don McKinnon, Secretary-General, Commonwealth. Mr Rana Sodhi is Joint Secretary of the Indian Olympic Association (IOA) as well as Vice-President of National Rifle Shooting Association of India. The CABOS will be tasked with exploring ways in which sports can be used as a tool for social and economic development. The board will report to Commonwealth Sports Minister on how this can be achieved. The CABOS will meet once a year. The first meeting will be held on June 6 and 7 in Ottawa, Canada. |
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Cheema to take part in Asian Championship
Chandigarh, May 8 Terming the forthcoming championship as very tough, Cheema, who won three silver medals in the last three Asian Championships and a bronze in the Asian Games in 2002, said he was aiming for the gold medal this time. |
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DLTA opens centre
New Delhi, May 8 DLTA president Anil Khanna, who is also the secretary-general of the All India Tennis Association (AITA), inaugurated the facility. He said one international tournament would be held at the venue and also announced a cash prize of Rs 25,000 for the Inter-School Tennis Tournament to be held at the school. The DLTA has been providing qualified coaches for widening the tennis coaching activity in prominent schools of Delhi from its India Tennis Centre at the DLTA complex. |
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