Indian Cricket Players' Association

No sooner did the Indian cricketers arrive after their tour of New Zealand, they got down to discussing the modalities of the newly floated Indian Cricket Players' Association.

Although it was described as an 'administrative' meeting, it came on a day when the controversial ICC Players' contract was challenged in the Delhi high court by former Union minister and BCCI president N K P Salve and former cricketers Kapil Dev and Madan Lal, among others.

All the top functionaries of the association, including president Mansur Ali Khan Pataudi, secretary Arun Lal, Abbas Ali Baig, Anil Kumble and Rahul Dravid attended the hour-long meeting on Saturday, which was a very low-key affair.

Despite the controversy over the contract, Arun Lal refused to attach much significance to the meeting. "It was just an administrative meeting. We went through the papers as we are setting up everything," he said.

"It was a planned meeting. Since Dravid and Kumble had a programme in Delhi, we had scheduled the meeting accordingly," he said.

Miscellaneous

Crowe made this comments in a column for the Wisden Web site about the recent Test and one-day series against India, in which fast bowler Daryl Tuffey took 25 wickets.

"Tuffey is a Maori and traditionally not many Maoris make good cricketers because they don't have the patience or the temperament to play through a whole day, let alone over a Test match," he wrote.

John Reid, operations manager of New Zealand Cricket, said Crowe's views did not represent those of the national governing body.

Wicket-keeper Adam Parore described Maoris and Polynesians as a 'significant untapped resource' for cricket.

Under-19

1st Youth ODI, Adelaide:

Australia U19 216 (48.3 overs) beat England U19 194 (44 overs) by 22 runs

England's youngsters came up short at St Peter's College despite another magnificent batting display by skipper Bilal Shafayat.

He hammered 82 off 67 balls, including two sixes and 10 fours, but Luke Wright and Liam Plunkett were the only other batsmen to make a significant contribution.

They were in with a chance of victory at 175 for seven, but Luke Davis dismissed Wright (42) and Plunkett (23) in quick succession to turn the match decisively in Australia's favour.