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July 3, 2001
Cricket |
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The Ashes Tour :
Injuries to England's premier batsman Graham Thorpe and to his replacement, Mark Ramprakash leaves the England team wounded even before the battle for the Ashes begins. Thorpe is yet to recover from an injury he suffered during the second Test against Pakistan while Ramprakash, recalled to the side after one year, has aggravated a hamstring injury playing a county match. Middlesex's Owais Shah is likely to replace Ramprakash for the first Test. Justin Langer's woes during the tour of England continue. Langer, who had also failed to find form on the tour of India continued to struggle in the warm up games in England. For the first Test at Birmingham, Langer has thus been replaced by the in-form middle-order batsman Damien Martyn, who has been scoring fluently on the tour so far. Martyn has 384 runs at an average of 96. 
Drug scam? : The weekly magazine Outlook in its latest issue has quoted Aushuman Gaekwad, the former Indian coach, as saying that many current Indian players used drugs to keep themselves fit and agile. Gaekwad said that he had observed this during his stint as coach that a few players would mix an expensive powdered formulation, supposedly brought from Australia by the physio Andrew Leipus, in their drinks. Gaekwad said that he observed Ajit Agarkar, who had no muscles to back his bowling action, when treated by Leipus, developed stronger legs, a fitter shoulder and a more powerful bowling arm. Gaekwad said Rahul Dravid, Javagal Srinath and Agarkar also used this formulation to keep themselves agile while playing. He further disclosed that steroids and cortisone injections are regularly used by the Indian players to cope with their injuries. Gaekwad, later has refuted the statements made in the above interview by saying that his words were misunderstood and twisted. He has also decided to take legal action against the magazine for publishing the interview.
Miscellaneous : In continuation of the major reshuffling of the Pakistan Cricket Board, Wasim Bari, the current chairman of selector was told that his services would no more be required. A new selection committee consisting of an honorary secretary and two paid selectors are likely to be appointed soon. The Anti Corruption Unit (ACU) of the International Cricket Council (ICC) has confirmed that the elusive Indian bookie Mukesh Gupta is unlikely to cooperate any further with the on going investigations. Gupta had verbally confirmed his allegations to the officers of the ACU, who are now however looking for some more concrete evidence. This will probably mean that the allegations made by Gupta against various international cricketers including Alec Stewart and Brian Lara cannot be substantiated. In view of this no action would be possible against these players. Meanwhile, Desmond Fernando, the Sri Lankan investigator on match-fixing will be submitting his report to the Sri Lankan Cricket Board by the 10th of this month. Former Sri Lankan players Arjuna Ranatunga and Arvinda deSilva are under scrutiny for their alleged involvement with cricket betting persons. The next Asia Cup one-day tournament will be played in Pakistan from August 23-September 7, 2002. All matches are expected to be day-night affairs. The six participating teams, have been divided into two groups with the top two teams moving to the super league after the preliminary matches. Pool A will comprise of hosts Pakistan, Bangladesh and United Arab Emirates, while Pool B have Sri Lanka, India and Hong Kong. In the super league stage each team will play the other, with the top two teams contesting the final. The next year's tournament will feature Hong Kong and United Arab Emirates for the first time in the Asia Cup, although the latter has appeared in the World Cup in 1996. After spending the past year trying to extricate himself from a financial scam, former Indian all-rounder Manoj Prabhakar was finally arrested at his New Delhi office yesterday. Prabhakar, the first to blow the whistle on the match fixing scam, is accused of duping investors millions of rupees through a non-existent finance company. East Zone Cricket Academy romped home winners of the first Col. Hemu Adhikari Trophy for the Inter-Academy tournament in Bangalore yesterday. They beat West Zone by a comfortable margin of eight wickets. Batting first West Zone were skittled out for 101, as East Zone cruised to victory in just over 21 overs. Former Indian Test all rounder Syed Abid Ali, 60, has been appointed by the Andhra Cricket Association to coach the Andhra team for the 2001-2002 Ranji Trophy season. Another Indian all rounder left-handed Karsan Ghavri is likely to take over the reigns of coaching the Bengal team for the 2001-2002 Ranji season. Ghavri has agreed to coach the Bengal team, initially for a period of one year. Incidentally, Ghavri, now 50, had coached the Mumbai team that had won the Ranji Trophy in 1993-94 under the leadership of Ravi Shastri. |
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