Zimbabwe in India

Rahul Dravid has made an immediate return from injury to the Indian squad for the first match of the two-Test series against Zimbabwe.

Dravid, who missed last month's one-day series against England in order to have shoulder surgery, made a half-century against Stuart Carlisle's tourists on Friday, playing for the Indian Board President's XI.

The selectors kept faith with wicketkeeper/opener Deep Dasgupta despite teenager Gautam Gambhir's 218 in the tour match.

Ajay Ratra kept wicket in the limited overs series against England.

"Dasgupta has been performing well as an opener and that turned the scales in his favor," said chief selector Chandu Borde.
The complete squad

England in New Zealand

One-day international, Wellington:
New Zealand 244-8 (50 overs) beat England 89 all out (37.2 overs) by 155 runs.

New Zealand crushed England by 155 runs to take a 2-0 series lead in the second one-day international in Wellington.

England's batsmen capitulated, chasing a stiff victory target of 245 on a sluggish pitch, and could only muster 89 runs between them.

They beat their lowest ever one-day international total of 86 scored against Australia last year, but it was scant consolation for being completely outplayed by the Black Caps.

________________

England skipper Nasser Hussain pulled no punches about his side's abject performance following their 155-run defeat by New Zealand in the second one-day international.

"We were outplayed in all three departments, to be honest. Batting, bowling, fielding - they did better than us, simple as that.

"We didn't turn up today. We were dreadful," he admitted.

England's effort was reminiscent of last summer, when they lost every match in the home triangular series against Australia and Pakistan.

Australia vs South Africa

New one-day captain Ricky Ponting believes Australia do not need to make any major changes to their side, despite recent poor form.

"There is nothing wrong in our side and as a captain you're judged by how many wins you get out of the side you've got on the park," Ponting said.

Steve Waugh was dropped from the one-day squad, and relinquished the captaincy, after Australia failed to make the finals of the home triangular series against South Africa and New Zealand earlier this month.

And the naming of Ponting as his successor on Saturday provoked speculation over a major purge in ageing players ahead of the World Cup in 12 months' time.

Miscellaneous

Former Indian batsman Sunil Gavaskar has renewed his attack on the England cricket team despite complaints to the International Cricket Council.

Chairman of selectors David Graveney and coach Duncan Fletcher were both unhappy about repeated criticism from Gavaskar in his column for the Hindustan Times newspaper.

Fletcher questioned whether it was appropriate for Gavaskar, who claims England are "the champion whinners of world cricket" to continue as chairman of an important ICC committee.

________________

During the 2001 Ashes series, just two Australian players were without sponsors' logos on their bats.

One currently averages 50.82 in the Test arena, and is just 495 runs short of becoming only the third batsman to pass 10,000 career runs.

The other boasts an average of 6.63 and, after 81 Tests, has just 405 runs.

Steve Waugh in November signed a deal with MRF thought to be worth around Aus$300,000 (£108,500) a year.

Yesterday's News .........................  News Roll archive