England in India

The touring England team beat India A by 3 wickets in a closely fought encounter at Jaipur yesterday.
Set to score 173 runs to win the visitors reached the target easily but not with out a few hiccups.
A tight 6 over spell from young Gautham Gambhir who claimed 3 quick wickets towards the end may have given the visitors a few tense moments.

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The Indian selection committee is reportedly so upset with the Indian skipper Sourav Ganguly's and his teams showing in South Africa that they decided to go ahead and select the team without bothering to wait for or consult him.
The selectors had reportedly spoken to team coach John Wright and physio Andrew Leipus, but not Ganguly, before picking the team.
Ganguly is most likely paying the price for backing certain players too far, some of those who lacked sting and effort on the tour of South Africa.

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The Punjab Cricket Association is in a battle against time to have all things set for the first Test between England and India beginning on Monday.
Stands in the stadium have been given a colourful look and all roads leading to the stadium are being spruced up for the occasion.
Test cricket returns to Mohali after nearly 2 years. The last Test to be played at this venue was against New Zealand in October 1999.

West Indies in Sri Lanka

It took yet another special effort from Brian Lara to pull his team out of trouble on the first day of the third and final Test against Sri Lanka at Colombo. Lara compiled 178 not out and went past 7000 Test runs in the process of taking his team to a position of relative comfort at stumps (327-3). Skipper Carl Hooper was unbeaten on 52. Lara was involved in an 194 run third wicket partnership with Ramnaresh Sarwan (69).

Miscellaneous

The BCCI chief Jagmohan Dalmiya confirmed that he was in the process of holding discussions with the ICC on having talks with them over the Virendra Sehwag issue at Kuala Lumpur. He however added that nothing was finalized.

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Following match referee Mike Denness's confession that he had not suspended Tendulkar for tampering with the ball but for alleged interference with the condition of the ball, Indian cricket officials have begun questioning the suspended one match ban and fine imposed on him. The question that is being raised is whether Tendulkar's actions warranted the suspended sentence for one Test

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The former BCCI President AC Muthiah said the felt the current stand off between the Indian Board and ICC was because the entire issue was not handled well. He said he felt that India erred in that they should not have created a situation where the third Test lost its official status. The former chief acknowledged that he would have handled the situation differently.

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