The visiting Kenyan team scored a comfortable seven wicket victoryover Baroda Cricket Association XI in a one day game at the Alembicground in Baroda on Monday.Put in to bat, Baroda were all out for 176 in 45.5 overs. Opener DThorat (52) and Jacob Martin (38) added 57 runs for the third wicketoff 13.2 overs after two wickets had fallen for 50 runs. But afterthat wickets at regular intervals. Thorat faced 75 balls and hit fivefours and a six while M Martin faced 65 balls and hit three of them tothe ropes. The wrecker-in-chief was B Patel who finished with fivewickets for 40 runs off 10 overs.Kenya lost Ravindu Shah (25) at 37 but wicketkeeper K Otieno (58) andHitesh Modi (28) put them firmly on the road to victory with a secondwicket stand of 80 runs off 21 overs. Both batsmen fell in successiveovers but B Patel (31) and skipper Maurice Odumbe (24) closed out thematch with an unbroken fourth wicket stand of 58 runs off 16.2 overs.Otieno faced 94 balls and hit three fours and four sixes.

An unbeaten 97 in difficult circumstances by DA Chougule and somegood bowling performances by both Tamil Nadu and Karnataka whichresulted in as many as 17 wickets falling was the feature of the first dayof the Cooch Behar Trophy South Zone league match at the IIT- Chemplastground in Chennai on Thursday. Tamil Nadu struggled to 82 for seven atstumps after bowling out Karnataka for 159 in their first innings.Tamil Nadu made a sedate start in their first innings with openers RSainath (13) and K Vasudeva Das (18) putting on 33 runs in 11.4 overs.Vasudeva Das was the first to go when he offered a return catch toDharmichand. Off the very next ball, R Prasanna departed, giving a catch toChougule. Then Aditya Srikkanth (20) and Sainath took thescore to 46, before the latter was out, giving a catch back to thebowler Dharmichand.Srikkanth was joined by E Suresh (8) for a brief period. Thetwo took the score to 63, when Suresh gave a catch to BMV Uthappa offSV Lasarus. Three balls later, Srikkanth became the fourth victim ofDharmichand when he was picked up by AK Bafna. Tamil Nadu then were in aspot of bother when Lazarus dismissed T Dushyanth (3) and Dharmichand sentback skipper Vidyuth Sivaramakrishnan (8) with 74on the board. Tamil Nadu ended an eventful day at 82 with L Balaji(2) and KKD Karthik (6) at the crease. Dharmichand was the wrecker-inchief for Karnataka with figures of five for 30 in his 14 overs.In the morning, disaster struck early for Karnataka when they elected tobat. Opener HTS Rao (0) was bowled off the fourth ball of the day by TBalaji. The other opener DV Krishna did not last longand departed in the sixth over when he was dismissed in much thesimilar way as his partner. Then BMV Uthappa (23) and DA Chougule joinedtogether to bring up the fifty for Karnataka.Then with the score at 59, Vidyuth struck the vital blow by havingUthappa caught behind by Kartik. The very next ball saw skipper C Raghureturning to the pavilion after being out in a similar manner. Ten runslater Stuart Binny was lured out of the crease by Vidyuth to be stumped byKartik. The next over from Vidyuth saw AK Bafna returning to the pavilionafter being stumped by Kartik.The next over by Balaji saw the departure of Dharmichand (0). ThenVidyuth came back to pick up the wicket of Lazarus. At the other endChougule was waging a lone battle. He reached his half century afterbatting for about 2-1/2 hours. He kept up the scoring rate with neat hitsto the fence interspersed with some solid batsmanship even as he lost hispartners at regular intervals. But Chougule found unlikely partners in theKarnataka tail and a 38-run ninth wicket partnership ensued between him andG Sendhil Kumar (7) which made sure of Karnataka going past the 100 runmark. Then NT Pinto (3) gave him company to help Karnataka end the firstinnings at 159. Chougule batted 208 minutes, faced 163 balls and hit 10fours and a six. Vidyuth was the most successful bowler. The left armspinner ended the innings with figures of 5 for 36 in his 20 overs.

Heavy overnight rain has left the Bagh-e-Jinnah ground in Lahore saturated, causing a delay to the start of play on the second day of England’s match against the Pakistan Cricket Board XI.An inspection is due to be made after lunch and if conditions are favourable, England will resume their innings on 76 for two. The PCB XI were dismissed for 117 shortly before tea on the first day.

There was a great hue and cry about the pitches in our country exactly ayear ago when the Indian team was faring badly in Australia. The pitch at theMotera Stadium at Ahmedabad was nothing to write home about as the top surfacejust kept coming off repeatedly. Ironically the curator at the Motera is amember of the pitches committee of the BCCI. Yet the score card of both thesides suggest that the pitch was one hell of a belter. One wonders whether thebatting needs to be complemented or the bowling deserves to be criticisedseverely. The Indians coasted to a convincing victory and everything will beforgiven and forgotten as a result.Saurav Ganguly dictated the course of the game from the outset despitelosing Sachin Tendulkar early on. His timing was as good as ever on a pitch,which was not a paradise for stroke play. Dravid played the second fiddle roleto perfection and watched his skipper unleash strokes all round the wicket.Travis Friend did work up good pace and accounted for Tendulkar with a peach ofa delivery. Tendulkar was surprised by not only the pace but also the bounceextracted by Friend.The second wicket partnership between Rahul Dravid and Ganguly virtuallysealed the fate of the visitors. It has to be mentioned that the visitors reallymade a mess of things with their innocuous attack. The lack of a reasonably goodspinner in their ranks was felt rather badly. The medium pace oriented attackwas also guilty of conceding too many extras by way of wides and no balls.The dropped chances compounded the misery of the Zimbabwean captain,Heath Streak. He could only watch Ganguly plunder his bowlers with his customaryelegance and pluck. The Indian skipper reached his century and he celebrated theoccasion with some explosive blows. Sunil Joshi made merry in the latter stagesof the innings hitting a few lusty blows. Anything above 250 was a stiff targeton a deteriorating surface and the Indians would have settled for that. But whatensued in the final ten overs was something incredible and this was one occasionthe hosts made the most of the slog.Chasing 300 plus successfully even on a firm pitch is not an everydayoccurrence, but the manner in which the visitors started their innings onlyreaffirmed the result. Marillier appeared like one who was in a hurry to getback into the dressing room for a shower. His repeated thrusts at thin airrubbed off on even Stuart Carlisle who is a batsman in the conventional mode.While Prasad brought Marillier’s misery to an end, Zaheer Khan with sheer pacebeat Carlisle. Alistair Campbell played some attractive shots and a big inningswas required from either Campbell or Andy Flower for Zimbabwe to make a match ofit. But the problem was going to be the spinners for the visitors and theintroduction of Tendulkar portended the things to come for Zimbabwe. Campbellwas dismissed in his first over and the purchase he obtained from the track putpaid to Zimbabwe’s hopes.Sridharan Sriram, who did an opportunity to bat, utilised the helpfulpitch to end up with three wickets. This would make the youngster feel muchbetter as he is under minute observation at the moment. He has to be encouraged,as Sodhi as yet cannot be termed as an all-rounder. With Robin Singh out of theside, Sriram appears the best bet to fill up the all-rounder’s slot.

Carlisle:
Cumberland 273 (Williams 75, Metcalfe 54; Graham 5-79) and 86
Suffolk 157 (Pennett 7-63) and 183 (Brown 56; Pennett 4-47)
Cumberland won by 19 runs
Cumberland 22pts. Suffolk 4

Andrew Symonds has signed for Kent as their overseas player. Symonds replaces South African Daryll Cullinan who is suffering from an injured knee.Symonds, an explosive batsman who boasts a record 16 sixes in a first-class innings (and 20 in the match) can also bowl both off-spin and medium pace. He spent the 1999 season with Kent, averaging 40 with the bat and has just completed a tour of England with the Australian one-day team that won the recent NatWest SeriesSymonds has also previously played for Gloucestershire (1995-96) as an English-qualified player, but later decided to dedicate his future to Australia. He will be available to play in Kent’s C and G game against Cumberland.

* ICC gives ultimatum to Mukesh Gupta to turn approverThe International Cricket Council on Monday gave an ultimatum toIndian bookmaker Mukesh Gupta to become a formal approver by July 1.”The ICC has approved the report in full and will be implementing allthe 24 recommendations,” ICC President Malcolm Gray told reporters inLondon after the Executive Board meeting which unanimously approvedCondon’s findings.Condon, who heads the Anti-Corruption Unit (ACU) of ICC, led a worldwide probe into match-fixing and his findings culminated in a 36-pagereport released last month. He told PTI that a two-member team of ACUwill travel to India later this week to serve the ultimatum on Guptawho claimed to have given money to a number of internationalcricketers and figured prominently in the CBI report on betting andmatch-fixing.Condon said he had met Gupta twice in March this year and the bookiehad verbally confirmed all his allegations he made to CBI. “But thatis not enough to move forward with disciplinary proceedings (againstthe players). We have to have evidence to bring some closure to allthis as otherwise it will be unfair to allow the cloud of suspicion tohang over the players’ heads,” he said.”I have given Gupta an ultimatum that it is necessary to let us knowby July 1 whether he is willing to cooperate with his evidence eitherin India or outside. If he fails to heed to the ultimatum, we mustassume that he is not prepared to cooperate further,” said Condon, whoadded that the ICC would guarantee Gupta his safety if he agreed totestify before the ACU.* Cricket betting racket bustedPolice in Bangalore have busted a cricket betting and gambling racket,involving lakhs of rupees, with the arrest of 13 people, a top policeofficial said on Monday. Acting on information, a police team raided abuilding complex on the Race Course road on Sunday and rounded up 13people who were allegedly involved in the racket.”Investigation is in progress. We will come to know if it has nationaland international ramifications only after the probe is over,” CityPolice Commissioner, T Madiyal, told PTI. According to police,Prasanna Kumar and Jagannatha were allegedly conducting the racket.While Prasanna Kumar has been taken into custody, Jagannatha isabsconding.Police seized 23 telephones, eight mobile phones, seven taperecorders, cassette, calculator and cash of Rs 1,64,910 during theraid. It was found that those conducting the racket were acceptingbets over phone and jotting them on their book. Preliminaryinvestigation reveled that at least Rs 15 lakh to Rs 16 lakh couldhave been invested in betting. Police are collecting information onthose who offered bets. Meanwhile, telecom authorities said they wereexamining suspension of telephones of those allegedly involvedfollowing the incident.* Prabhakar denies involvement with chit-fund companyFormer Indian all-rounder Manoj Prabhakar on Monday denied that he wasin any way involved with the Uttar Pradesh based non-banking financecompany which is accused of duping investors to the tunes of crores ofrupees. The beleaguered cricketer, who had been untraceable ever sincethe UP police issued arrest warrant against him late last month, toldreporters in Lucknow that the NBFC Apace India had procured themarketing rights of the products of his cosmetics company which he hadestablished about five years ago.”My relationship with Apace was on company to company basis. Myassociation with Apace has been misunderstood,” he said, adding he wasnot involved with the company in any other way.The cricketer, already smarting under a five-year ban from playinginternational cricket for allegedly hob-nobbing with bookmakers, saidhe had cancelled the marketing rights given to Apace in April 1999.Flanked by his counsel Vinod Shahi and Anil Pratap Singh, Prabhakarhowever admitted that he had accompanied Apace officials to severalplaces in Uttaranchal during the launch of his company’s herbalproducts and had even played for the Apace cricket team.On being asked about his signatures on the receipts issued by Apace,he claimed he had signed those against purchase of his own company’sproducts at some places. In fact, he said, he had invested about Rs 25lakh in Apace and was now trying to recover his money.

Pakistan and Sri Lanka have agreed to play in Sharjah’s one-day cricket tournament for the next three years, say organisers.The twice-yearly Coca-Cola Cup suffered a setback in Aprilwhen the Indian government banned its national team from competingthere for three years.Media reports said the Sharjah tournament’s vulnerability topossible match-fixing may have caused the Indians to withdraw. Theevent attracts crowds mainly from Sharjah’s ex-patriot Indian andPakistani population.”Although I’m hopeful India will play here again, matchesinvolving Pakistan and Sri Lanka will create great interest,”said Zahid Noorani, chief executive of the Cricketers Benefit FundSeries, which runs the tournaments.The two countries contested a 30,000 sell-out final in April,when Sri Lanka won after Pakistan triumphed in all four of theirgroup matches. New Zealand had replaced India as the third team.The next event, involving Zimbabwe as the third nation, willrun from 26 October to 4 November, Noorani said. Prize money has beenincreased to US$250,000 from US$100,000, with the winner receivingUS$120,000 and the runner-up US$80,000, he said.The Emirates Cricket Board is holding an inquiry, headed byformer West Indies captain Clive Lloyd, into allegations of matchfixing at the Sharjah tournament and elsewhere in the U.A.E.

Indian skipper Sourav Ganguly has come in for scathing criticism in theSri Lankan media for violating the ICC Code of Conduct twice within aweek during the triangular one-day series in Colombo inviting thewrath of the match referee.”Ganguly’s actions are sullying the good name of Indian cricket,”state-owned ‘Daily News’ said in a coloumn by its cricket writer.”Ganguly will certainly not go down as a captain who upheld the spiritof the game after getting on the wrong side of the InternationalCricket Council match referee Cammie Smith twice inside a week,” itsaid.The Indian captain was suspended for a match for showing dissent atthe umpire after being adjudged leg before wicket in a match againstNew Zealand. Ganguly got into trouble once again in the penultimateleague match against Sri Lanka when he gave a verbal send-off toRussel Arnold. He was “severly reprimanded” by Smith and fined 75 percent of his match fees.”To be the captain of a country is a matter of national pride. Alongwith it comes greater responsibility and accountability. By hisactions, Ganguly had become a marked man and he should restrainhimself on the field,” the daily said.”It’s unbecoming of the captain of India,” said another daily ‘TheIsland’ which also commented that Smith seemed to have adopted doublestandards in penalising Ganguly while letting off Michael Slater for amuch graver show of dissent during Australia’s tour of India earlierthis year.The paper said the match referees might be forced to take harshdecisions against players who crossed the line once too often. “Onecan only think of such an explanation to justify Ganguly’s suspensionin this instance,” it said.It also criticised former Indian opener Navjot Singh Sidhu, now atelevision commentator, for “jumping to Ganguly’s defence”.

* BCCI’s letter seeking India’s participation in ATC reaches MEAThe Sports Ministry has forwarded the letter from the Board of Controlfor Cricket in India, asking for the Government’s permission to playagainst Pakistan at Karachi in the Asian Test Championship (ATC) matchin September, to the Ministry of External Affairs which will take afinal decision on the issue.Sports Minister Uma Bharti said on Friday that her ministry hadreceived BCCI’s letter dated July 26 and forwarded it to the MEA whichwill take a final decision in consultation with the Ministry of HomeAffairs. BCCI president AC Muthiah met Bharti on Friday to know theGovernment’s response to the letter. “She (Bharti) told me that thematter was under consideration,” Muthiah said after the meeting.”The Government has already said that it would allow the team to playagainst Pakistan in multi-lateral tournaments but a final decision onATC was still to be taken,” he said, adding that he expected thedecision by the third week of this month.To a suggestion whether India and Pakistan can play the ATC match at aneutral venue like Colombo, Muthiah said it would be unacceptable. “Ifwe don’t play Pakistan in Karachi, the tournament will have to becalled off. Pakistan wants us to play in their country. We also wantPakistan to come to India,” he said.* Utpal to lead CAB in Buchi Babu tourneyVeteran left arm spinner Utpal Chatterjee will lead CricketAssociation of Bengal in the All India Buchi Babu invitation crickettournament to be played at Chennai from August 12.The following are the other members of the team: Ritesh Jaiswal(wicket keeper), Rohan Gavaskar, Amitava Chakrabarty, SaikatMukherjee, Subhamoy Das, Souvik Mukherjee, Subhradeep Ganguly, SanjibSanyal, Sourashish Lahiri, Laxmi Ratan Shukla, Shib Shankar Paul,Sabir Ali and Pradipta Majumder. Stand bye: Soumen Singh. Coach:Karsan Ghavri. Manager: Dipen Rudra.In case Ghavri, who is now in Mumbai attending to his ailing mother,cannot make the trip to Chennai, Dattatreya Mukherjee will take up thecoaching responsibility. The team will leaves Kolkata on August 13.CAB play their first match against ONGC from August 16.* Hyderabad CA team for Buchi Babu tourneyA Nanda Kishore will lead Hyderabad Cricket Association in the AllIndia Buchi Babu invitation cricket tournament to be held at Chennaifrom August 12.The other members of the team are: Arvind Shetty, Anirudh Singh, DVinay Kumar, N Arjun Yadav, J Shivaji Yadav, Mohd. Ibrahim Khaleel,Noel David, Fatima Reddy, Mohd. Ghouse, T Suman, S Vishnu Vardhan, ATRayudu, Ahmed Quadri, B Anoop Pai. Manager: Girish Rao. Coach: ArshadAyub.HCA start their campaign with a first round match against MRF to beplayed from August 16.