Indian news round-up

Two former Indian captains Bishen Singh Bedi and Sunil Gavaskar came down heavily on the Indian side for their poor performance in the Mumbai Test against Australia. Gavaskar in his syndicated column was quoted as saying that "Waugh's gamble of asking India to bat first on a lively wicket succeeded because of timid batting," reports AFP.

"The Indians have often being described as tigers at home and lambs abroad. Perhaps the time has now come to change that to pussycats at home as well as abroad. Unless the team changes it's attitude, it will be meow, meow and more meow," Gavaskar was quoted as saying.

Bedi, the former left arm spinner said "Surely the Indian batting cannot revolve around Sachin Tendulkar all the time." On Ganguly's captaincy, Bedi said "Sourav Ganguly was anything but an inspiration for his team - a marked difference between the two leaders." Bedi added that "There is plenty to learn from this Australian side...owning up individual responsibility, pulling your weight in the side and discipline in every department of the game." Taking a dig at Ajit Agarkar's dubious record of seven ducks in a row against the Australians, Bedi said "If Ajit is persisted with as an all-rounder, than I was a mainline batsman."

With his batting not coming good when it mattered against the Australians in the first Test at Mumbai, Indian skipper Sourav Ganguly has replaced Vijay Dahiya as the skipper of the Board President's XI to get some crucial match practice.

Speaking to Press Trust of India (PTI), the vice president of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), CK Khanna said Delhi's wicket-keeper batsman Dahiya, who was originally named captain of the Board President's XI will now be Ganguly's deputy in the match. The Australia-Board President's XI match is scheduled to be played in New Delhi from March 6 to 8 prior to the second Test at the Eden Gardens in Kolkata which is to be played from March 11 to 15.

The Delhi High Court on Friday refused to intervene in a dispute between the Prasar Bharati and a private company Budha Films Private Limited (BFPL) to grant an interim stay on the writ petition filed by the latter. A bench comprising Justice Arun Kumar and Justice AK Sikri gave its ruling while deciding BFPL's appeal, challenging Prasar Bharati's decision to make DD-Sport a pay channel after it had signed a deal of Rs 450 crore with the latter for marketing of cricket matches all over the world.

The court said the issue involving BFPL should be decided by an Arbitral Tribunal as the party had a contract with DD. "It is an admitted position that this question is to be finally answered by the Arbitral Tribunal as the dispute comes within its scope as contained in the contract" between Prasar Bharati and BFPL on the marketing of cricket matches up till 2004.

The court also said that "when all other sports channels were pay channels it is not prudent to direct Prasar Bharati to revert to free to air channel, that too by way of interim measures and pending arbitration which would ultimately decide the respective rights of parties under contract."

Former Indian opening batsman Vikram Rathour will lead Punjab against Rajasthan in the Ranji Trophy pre-quarter final match to be played at the Punjab Cricket Association stadium (PCA) Mohali from March 10 to 14.

Announcing the squad in Chandigarh on Thursday, the secretary of the Punjab Cricket Association, MP Pandove, said that Navdeep Singh, who had not reported fit, had been dropped. Team members have been asked to report to their manager Bhupinder Singh Senior at the stadium on Saturday for the warm-up camp.

The other members of the team are: Pankaj Dharmani, Sarandeep Singh, Yuvraj Singh, Reetinder Singh Sodhi, Dinesh Mongia, Ravneet Ricky, Manish Sharma, Harminder Jugnu, Sandeep Sawal, Gagandeep Singh, Bablu Kumar, Ankur Kakkar, Vaneet Kumar, Sandeep Sharma, Vivek Mahajan and Gaganinder Garry.

Former Bengal Ranji Trophy skipper Sambaran Banerjee said in Kolkata on Thursday that Milan Sangha is organising a fund-raising doublewicket tournament on Sunday, March 4 which will feature the state's prominent sportspersons and artistes.

Speaking at a press conference, Banerjee said that the target of the fund raiser was to raise at least Rs one lakh which will be donated to victims of last year's flood in West Bengal and the January 26 earthquake in Gujarat.

Pronab Roy, Subroto Banerjee, Gopal Bose, Bhaskar Ganguly, Gautam Sarkar, Prasun Banerjee, Surajit Sengupta and Jyotirmoyee Sikdar are expected to participate in the tournament along with film stars like Laboni Sarkar, Sabyasachi Chakraborty, Swagatalakshmi Dasgupta and Indranil Sen.