By Neeraj Nanda

Melbourne, February 6: Cricket Australia said today that it’s National Selection Panel has named Ben Hilfenhaus in the squad for Australia’s Commonwealth Bank Series ODI against Sri Lanka this Friday (10th February) in Perth, due to the foot injury sustained by Brett Lee during Friday’s KFC T20 INTL against India at the MCG.

Cricket Australia had on Thursday (5th February) confirmed Australian fast bowler Brett Lee has been diagnosed with a broken foot following a fielding incident in Friday night’s KFC T20 International against India at the MCG.

Cricket Australia team Doctor Trefor James said:

“Brett Lee sustained a fracture of his right foot when he was struck by a ball in the last over of his spell during the KFC T20 against India at the MCG on Friday night.

“He was able to complete the over however the foot became more painful and swollen the following day. An x-ray has confirmed a fracture of the small toe and we now expect Brett will return to cricket in four-six weeks.”

A decision regarding a replacement player for Lee will not be made until after today’s first Commonwealth Bank ODI against India at the MCG. Squad members will return to homeports until Wednesday when the squad will congregate in Perth for Friday’s second match, Cricket Australia media release says.

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Sachin Tandulkar batting on day 2. PHOTO: Neeraj Nanda/SAT

By Shobhit Nanda

Melbourne: Sachin Tendulkar again missed a golden opportunity to get his 100th international century after being bowled by Peter Siddle in the final over of the day. Tendulkar looked fluent and aggressive during his knock of 73 runs and was involved in a 117 run partnership with Rahul Dravid which left India in a strong position to overtake Australia and take a lead on day 3 of the boxing day match.

Earlier in the day, Virender Sehwag made 67 runs in quick time to give India a good start. Gautam Gambhir missed out with catch in the slip for 3 runs. Rahul Dravid remains at the crease on 68 not out having survived a Peter Siddle no ball taking his stumps after tea. India ended the day on 214 for 3 wickets trailing Australia’s first innings score of 333 by 177 runs.

- SAT News Service

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1. No DRS gives India the edge on Day 1 From Shobhit Nanda Melbourne: Australian debutante Ed Cowan was one...

From Shobhit Nanda

Melbourne: Australian debutante Ed Cowan was one of the twin victim of India’s day 1 bowling attack which would have been overturned had Decision Review System (DRS) was being used in the current India vs Australia test series. The struggling Michael Hussey copped a golden duck with replays suggesting the balls clipped his shirt rather than the edge.

India none the less had a good day at the office taking 6 Aussie wickets although resistance later in the day by Brad Haddin and Peter Siddle helped Australia achieve a respectable day 1 score. Play ended with Australia at 6/277 with India’s fast bowling sensation Umesh Yadav taking 3 wickets.

Umesh Yadav facing the media after the days play said he was happy with his performance but would have preferred to have bowled more economical. His three wickets included the scalps of Warner, March and Ponting which kept Australia in check. Ishant Sharma was the unlucky having been the pick of the Indian bowler but not taking any wickets. Zaheer Khan also made a steady comeback taking the wickets of Hussey and Clarke, which Ashwin took the wicket to dismiss Cowan caught behind.

Ed Cowan, who made an impressive century in the preceding tour game against India in Canberra, was unlucky to have been given out caught behind with hotspot replays not showing any contact with the willow. Cowan commented that he wanted consistency in the use of DRS by the ICC and no doubt feels he has missed out on a century on debut. India was also at the receiving end of their decision to not use DRS when a close LBW shout late on the day against Brad Haddin was turned down by the umpire.

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By Prabhat Shunglu

New Delhi: The claims of British doctors and scientists can always be re-doubted whether the New Delhi bug
actually originated from the capital of the country it has been named after before long it was
claimed to have travelled to Europe and other continents but corruption is one adamant superbug
that refuses to leave the power corridors of New Delhi. This time the bug bit a somebody who has
been a familiar name in the country’s sports administration, credited, along with several like-minded
politicians and social bigwigs running sports bodies, with pushing the country’s sports on the brink
of sustained disaster leave aside a few sports. And they did this largely by draining the coffers of
the sports bodies they headed for private luxury. Those who were incapable of such an enterprise
showed their prowess by investing their energies into more physical and fleshy aspect of sports,
never mind the public shame that invariably accompanied the exposure of their escapades. Only
the Board of Cricket Control of India can be excluded from this category because they have single-
handedly fashioned cricket’s fall from grace by plying the boys with stinking money only to see Team
India set records after records in setting lowest scores ever in test and one day history and going
down to rivals with margins that cannot be measured in yards but in miles.

But why should the country make a song and dance about Kalmadi and his hand-picked coterie.
How will his resignation help set things right when the Commonwealth Games are round the corner.
In fact, there cannot be a more opportune time to tether Kalmadi to his acts of commissions and
omissions. Now is the time to believe in him for all what he is claiming. Now is the time to repose
one hundred per cent faith in his leadership and enterprise. If the Games are pulled off without
stadium lights going out just when the rivals in the boxing ring are taking rapid jabs at each other,
without a tile out of place, without the players getting stuck in the traffic jams from the games
village to the stadium, without rains playing havoc with Kalmadi, his men and Delhi government’s
cheeky efforts to give a leak-proof stadium all the punches and jabs being thrown at Team Kalmadi
may actually boomerang. Public memory is time-tested and is clearly short. Post October 14 when
the curtains fall down on the Commonwealth Games you can be rest assured the former fighter pilot
would have ejected to safety.

But that would be one lovely wishful thinking for Mr Kalmadi. For in the deep recess of his mind
he must be scheming ways to get out of the sordid mess because he knew he was sprinting close
to that mess every time a stone was laid at expanding the stadium, every time a tile was imported
for the rest rooms and the lobbies, when state-of-the-art turf was being laid out and every time a
certain plan was changed and re-drawn to measure up to the most modern sporting facilities that
lived up to the international standards. It is hard to digest Kalmadi’s ignorance about tenders and
deals floating around him most of which he was personally privy to and he personally partook. The
fabricated letter from the Indian High Commission recommending a certain firm for a contract was a
clear give away of Team Kalmadi’s shenanigans. As Kalmadi himself had a big foot into his mouth on
news channels across the country.

Precisely why even the party he has served over three decades has distanced itself from him over
the CWG controversies. But it is a case of too little too late. It is true that as elected president of
the Indian Olympic Association and man in charge of CWG preparations Kalmadi is answerable
only to Commonwealth Games Federation in this case and not to Sonia Gandhi or Prime Minister

Manmohan Singh. Yet it shall be travesty of reason and logic to completely take away the blame
from the Congress party or the government for having allowed the mess to prosper at the cost of the
nation’s pride and honour.

Whose credibility is at stake in this CWG anyway. Whose games are these. Kalmadi may just be
Games CEO for all we know but at the end of the day it is India’s honour and credibility at stake. Can
one man be allowed to play with country’s confidence, pride and self-esteem. Can the government
of the day wash its hands off the controversies and those that may dog the Games in the immediate
future or post the conclusion of the Games. What, if the standards at the Games venues and stadia
were found suspect. What if the rains bring down the concrete slab over the excited and restive
spectators. It shall also crush the country’s credibility and self-esteem beyond repair. And burdened
with this heavy weight guilt we shall loose the moral right to bid for hosting the 2020 Olympics.
Anyway, with tons of water-tight evidences the Olympics Committee shall be on a high moral ground
to reject India’s bid.

You can question the chicaneries of a Kalmadi but the pragmatism of the Manmohan Singh
government ably remote-controlled by 10 Janpath, the repository of political power in the country
today, who also plays parent and guardian to several Congress MPs including Mr Suresh Kalmadi,
also becomes suspect. For much part of his tenure after he was put in charge of the sports ministry
Mr M S Gill seemed fumbling for a role for himself when he should have been asserting his authority
as a Minister. The grand-old-nanny of Delhi’s politics chief minister Sheila Dixit appeared too clever
by half as it gradually dawned upon her that after all she will have to meet project deadlines well
before the onset of the Games. While the Gills, the Dixits and the Kalmadis were busy playing
seven stones with the Games not a leaf stirred at either the South Block, 7 Race Course Road or 10
Janpath.

Enter Mike Fennel and the country wakes up to a disaster in waiting. The government agencies
engaged in Games’ work were caught off-guard. As Fennel hopped and stepped over games
preparations he nearly jumped with anger at the tardy progress. That was a year ago. Kalmadi cut a
sorry figure but put up a brave face and made incredulous assertions misleading public but gathering
headlines nevertheless. That was the time the Manmohan government should have appropriated
the opportunity to take the Games command under its wings without giving the impression that
Kalmadi’s wings have been clipped. It could have also saved Mani Aiyar the embarrassment of
having to literally curse, in a fit of frustration and anger, a la sage Parashuram that the games shall
be an utter disaster. Finally it dawned upon him that he was no longer the minister of sports and
having lost the elections and now nominated to the Rajya Sabha shall never become one again and
will have to cool his heels in the Upper House for long.

But who knows Mani’s unprecedented, off-the-cuff but pungent outburst may have just catapulted
him into the big league of doomsday alarmists. Maybe he is the indigenous answer to the ‘occult
powers’ Germany’s Octopus Paul possessed. Who will have the last laugh – Mani Shankar or the
Games mascot Shera. Shera, the tiger, is battered and bruised by the gang of classical poachers in all
likelihood might just be counting on his last breath.

If the Games pull off well it shall be a triumph of corruption once again and India shall celebrate
it on the streets of New Delhi. Corruption is one superbug Indians can claim to have lab-tested
indigenously. The only difference being while the NDM-1 feeds on human lives the corruption

superbug gnaws at the soul. This superbug and not the superbug British scientists are tom-toming
having originated here should be the one named after the capital of the country of its origin.
- 13-08-2010

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By Ranjit Devraj

NEW DELHI, Apr 25 (IPS) - Allegations that India’s junior foreign minister Shashi Tharoor had swung
outsize ‘sweat equity’ for a female friend in a newly floated professional cricket
league franchise may have cost him his job, but it may also expose the multi-
million dollar India Premium League (IPL) as a massive money-laundering
enterprise.

Tharoor, a former United Nations under-secretary general, denied in a
speech delivered in Parliament on Tuesday that he had done anything
”improper or unethical,” adding he was resigning so as not to ”embarrass” the
government of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

But the heat generated over the issue resulted in parliamentarians from both
the treasury and opposition benches demanding that the government
thoroughly investigate the IPL and its ability to attract hundreds of millions of
dollars from shell companies at auctions of franchises and in advertising and
telecast rights.

During the debates in Parliament around Tharoor’s resignation, Laloo Prasad
Yadav, leader of the regional Rashtriya Janata Dal party, alleged that the IPL
thrived on ”the laundering of black money stashed away in Swiss banks.”

Gurudas Dasgupta, a long-standing member of the Communist Party of
India, said the IPL exploited a passion for cricket among Indians but had
turned the game into organised gambling. He referred to reports of large
amounts of money flowing into the IPL from tax havens such as Mauritius and
Dubai.

Top members of the ruling Congress party seemed to agree. ”The IPL is
nothing but glorified gambling with black money,” said Vayalar Ravi, a
member of Singh’s cabinet and Minister for Overseas Indians.

Such was the clamour for investigations into the workings of the IPL that
Indian Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee was compelled to make a solemn
promise in Parliament that a thorough probe would be launched by the
income tax department and that ”no one would be spared.”

On Wednesday, income tax officials carried out simultaneous raids on IPL’s
offices in several cities across India and those of its franchisees such as the
Kolkata Knight Riders owned by the film star Shah Rukh Khan.

Tax officials have been questioning IPL commissioner Lalit Modi, described as
the ‘wunderkind’ who brought together high-profile politicians, film stars,
world cricketing legends and big money to create what may be the world’s
most lucrative professional cricket league.

With such a powerful lineup, will the government carry its investigations into
the workings of the IPL to its logical conclusion? ”No chance of that
happening,” said Vineet Narain, a veteran crusader against the phenomenon
of ‘black money’ (cash transactions hidden from the government) that
greases the workings of political parties in India.

”As we have seen with other scams of this magnitude, politicians and
businessmen can be expected to close ranks and ensure that the income tax
investigations reach nowhere,” Narain told IPS. ”The IPL, in fact, is the latest
and slickest way to launder black money stashed away by politicians and big
wigs in tax havens abroad.”

Black money has long been considered the lifeblood of politics in India,
where the system requires political parties to keep large numbers of workers
on their payrolls but cannot be legally funded to pay their salaries.

Jayprakash Narain û founder of the Hyderabad-based non-government
organisation devoted to eradicating corruption in public life û said nothing
short of ”systemic reform” can break the close links between black money
and India’s political parties.

”Perhaps more than anywhere else in the world, politicians in India work by
mobilising large numbers of people for mammoth rallies that are expensive
and that can be paid for only by raising money through dubious means on
being elected to power û and this process is perpetuated in a vicious cycle,”
Narain told IPS over telephone from Hyderabad.

On Wednesday the main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) mounted a
massive rally in the national capital to protest against rising prices, which BJP
leader Lal Krishna Advani blamed on ”rising corruption within the central
government leadership.”

According to Narain what is particularly unfortunate about the IPL scam is
that it has shown up top politicians chasing after a brand of cricket
associated with glamorous Indian film stars, the world’s top cricket heroes
and all-night parties while the country grapples with mass poverty.

One name that keeps popping up in the context of both rising food prices
and big-time cricket is that of Sharad Pawar, union agricultural minister and
the man slated to replace Britain’s David Morgan as the president of
International Cricket Council in June this year.

The IPL was created as a unit of the Board of Cricket Control in India while
Pawar was chairman from 2005 to 2008.

As leader of the National Congress Party, a key constituent of the ruling
United Progressive Alliance, Pawar wields enormous clout in the Manmohan
Singh government.

”The arithmetic in the Lok Sabha (lower house of parliament) is such that
government cannot afford to antagonise Sharad Pawar and also hope to see
through a slew of important legislation in the current budget session of
parliament,” Vineet Narain said.

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By News Bureau

Melbourne: Mr. Suresh Kalmadi, Chairman of the organising committee for the New Delhi 2010 Commonwealth Games, will be visiting Australia next week, coinciding with the arrival of the Queen’s Baton Relay, the Australian Commonwealth Games Association said on Monday.

Mr. Kalmadi will travel to Sydney, Melbourne and the Gold Coast, where he will attend a number of functions associated with the arrival of the Baton in Australia, the ACGA said.

The New Delhi Games, from October 3-14, will comprise 19 sports, making it the largest Commonwealth Games to date.

Australia is likely to send its largest ever contingent to participate in the Games, with more than 425 athletes and 175 officials, the AGCA said.

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Queen Elizabeth II, Indian President Prathiba Patil, Indian Sports Minister M.S. Gill and CWG2010 Organising Committee Chairman Suresh Kalmadi at the launching of the Queen’s Baton Relay 2010 in London on Oct.29, 2009.
PHOTO: CWG2010

LONDON, October 29, 2009: A delightful India aroma wafted across the Buckingham Palace this morning as the Queen Elizabeth II launched the Queen’s Baton Relay 2010, 339 days before the start of the XIX Commonwealth Games in Delhi, by placing her message to the athletes in an exquisite jewellery box in a handcrafted Baton.
A brief but delightful Indian cultural pageant preceded the formal ceremony in the packed forecourt of the Palace before Commonwealth Games Federation President Mr Michael Fennell carried the Baton to the Queen so that she could place her message in the Baton. The Queen then handed over the Baton to President Smt. Pratibha Devisingh Patil.
The President then passed on the Baton to Sports Minister Dr. M.S. Gill who gave it to Organising Committee Chairman Suresh Kalmadi who in turn handed it to the first Batonbearer, Abhinav Bindra. The Olympic air rifle champion then set off on a walk to the Palace Gates where he was met by Lord Sebastian Coe.
Bindra and Coe ran three laps of the Queen Victoria Memorial as the Baton changed hands and involved the likes of Kapil Dev, Sania Mirza, Dame Kelly Holmes, Vijender Kumar, Sushil Kumar, Milkha Singh, Misha Grewal Soni, Monty Panesar, Sue Gilroy, Karnam Malleswrari, Dilip Tirkey and Gurbachan Singh Randhawa.
The last two then drove off in a Delhi2010 branded London Taxi to signal the start of an amazing journey that will see the Baton travel 190,000km before it reaches the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium in Delhi during the Opening Ceremony of the Games on October 3, 2010. It will have visited all 71 nations and territories of the Commonwealth.
- Media Release

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From Our Correspondent

New Delhi: Australia has decided to help revive Indian hockey. Visiting Australian Foreign Minister Stephen Smith announced that starting next year, two players — a male and female — and a coach will get free training at the Institute of Sports and Hockey Facility in Perth. The Minister was talking to reporters during a visit to the National Stadium and Talkatora Swimming pool here.

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By our correspondent

New Delhi: India’s President Prathiba Patil will be present on 29 October, 2009 in London when the Queen’s Baton is launched by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II . The President has accepted the invitation of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II to attend the Relay launch. Olympic Gold Medalist Abhinav Bindra will receive the Baton from the Queen as the first Baton bearer of the Relay, says a media release of the Games.

On arrival at the opening ceremony, the baton will have travelled in excess of 190,000 kilometres passing through 70 nations and territories over a 340 day period; this will make the Delhi 2010 Queen’s Baton Relay one of the longest relays in the history of the Commonwealth Games. The relay will conclude with the final Baton bearer entering the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium during the Opening Ceremony of the 20th Commonwealth Games on 3 October 2010.

The Queen’s Baton Relay is one of the great traditions of the Commonwealth Games. Queen’s Baton Relays have been the curtain raiser to every Commonwealth Games since 1958.

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Melbourne News Bureau

Melbourne: Australia’s free to air Ch-10 and Foxtell will telecast the next years Commonwealth Games in Delhi. This was disclosed by Mr. Suresh Kalamdi, Chairman Organising Committee Delhi Commonwealth Games, in an exclusive interview to the Melbourne based Neeraj Nanda, Editor, South Asia Times.

The interview published in the July edition of South Asia Times also discloses that TV New Zealand, New Zealand, South Africa Broadcasting Corporation , South Africa, Cyprus Broadcasting Corporation, Cyprus, Broadcasting Organisation of Nigeria, Nigeria, Asia-Pacific c Broadcasting Union (ABU) have also been granted the rights to telecast and talks are in progress with the Namibian Broadcasting Corporation for the same.

The total value of the contracted rights is US $42.87 Million. In India the rights for TV and Radio have been granted to national broadcasters Doordarshan and Akashwani, the interview discloses.

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