PCB suspend Afridi agreement

The PCB has respond to Shahid Afridi's retirement by suspend his central bond and putting mutually a show cause notice detail several breaches of the code of behavior, which he will be expected to react to within a week.

Announcing his leaving to a TV channel, the board said in a press release, was in itself a breach of Clause 2.1.4 of the Central Contract trade with Covenants of the Cricketer.

Afridi's disapproval of the board officials in the same interview also constituted a breach. "In passing pained remarks about the board and its officials, Shahid Afridi is in breach of Clause 4.4 dealing with Media obligation.

"A show cause notice has been issue to him looking for his clarification on these comments. Afridi has been asked to react to the letter within 7 days. His Central Contract has been suspended with instant effect. Consequently, all NOCs decided to him have been revoked. All expenditure on account of Central Contract has been balanced."

A day after Afridi's outburst against the management on TV, and his decision to not play international cricket under this board, PCB chairman Ijaz Butt said he was "disappointed" by the remarks and that the "leaving" was not an issue at all.

"It was unsatisfactory to hear what he said," Butt told ESPNcricinfo, "and it wasn't correct or true. It was wrong of him to do that. If he doesn't want to play under this administration, then he's welcome. We've thorough several instances where he has breach the code of conduct and will issue a show cause notice to him, which he has seven days to react to."

Senior board officials spent much of the day in a budget meeting, but the issue of Afridi was a live one all through. The board took legal advice before acting on the postponement of the agreement, as well as the withdrawal of the NOCs given to him for a T20 stint with Hampshire, and one for his contribution in the upcoming Sri Lanka Premier League (SLPL).

Afridi was sent a separate show cause notice previous this month for comments he made on his return to Pakistan from the Caribbean about the team management, remarks which landed him in problem in the first place. Disciplinary action, if any, is pending on that notice as well.

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Indian team undergrowth for West Indies

A second string Indian team, led by Suresh Raina, left for the West Indies on Wednesday to participate in a T20, five ODIs and three Test matches.

The Indian team boarded a involving flight to Barbados via London at 0230 hours from the Chhattrapati Shivaji International Airport in Mumbai.

India will play one T20 at Trinidad (June 4) and five-ODIs on June 6 (Trinidad), June 8 (Trinidad), June 11 (Antigua), June 13 (Antigua) and June 16 (Jamaica).

India will also contribute in a three match Test-rubber that will be detained at Jamaica (June 20-June 24), Barbados (June 28-Jul 2) and Dominica (Jul 6-Jul 10).

The Indian squad for the ODIs and the lone T20 is without nine players who were part of the World Cup winning team under normal skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni.

The players missing out include Dhoni, Sachin Tendulkar, Zaheer Khan-- who has been rested, the wounded Gautam Gambhir, Virender Sehwag and Ashish Nehra and an unwell Yuvraj Singh.

S Sreesanth and Piyush Chawla have been drop. However, Dhoni and Zaheer will connect the team for the Test matches along with V V S Laxman, Murali Vijay, Abhinav Mukund, Rahul Dravid, and Sreesanth.

When India last tour the Caribbean Islands in 2006 under Dravid, it created history by beating the home team (1-0 in a four match rubber) in a Test series for the first time in 35 years.

However, the team will surely look to change the 1-4 defeat it got in the five-match ODI series then.

ODI and T20 squad: Suresh Raina (capt), R Ashwin, S Badrinath, Harbhajan Singh (vc), Virat Kohli, Praveen Kumar, Amit Mishra, Munaf Patel, Parthiv Patel (wk), Yusuf Pathan, Wriddhiman Saha (wk), Ishant Sharma, Rohit Sharma, Vinay Kumar, Manoj Tiwary, Shikhar Dhawan.

Test squad: M S Dhoni (capt), VVS Laxman (vc), M Vijay, Abhinav Mukund, Rahul Dravid, Virat Kohli, S Badrinath, Harbhajan Singh, Ishant Sharma, Sreesanth, Amit Mishra, Pragyan Ojha, Zaheer Khan, Munaf Patel, Suresh Raina, Parthiv Patel.

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World Cup wins regulations BCCI award night

The 2009-10 BCCI awards function on Tuesday evening in Mumbai was well attended by present and former luminaries of Indian cricket.
By Abhideep Das in Mumbai

In a year when Team India has given joy to Indians all over the world by charming the ICC Cricket World Cup 2011, it is only fair that the complete focus will always be on those 15 members anywhere they go.

Tuesday evening was no dissimilar as MS Dhoni and his warrior took center-stage during the BCCI awards purpose for the year 2009-10 held at the good-looking lawn of Taj Land’s End, Bandra.

The whole evening was conquered with the sweet scent of victory from that unbelievable night of April 2 at the Wankhede Stadium. As promise by the Board then, each and every member of Team India was handed out a cheque of Rs two crores each, while the entire support-staff got a handsome prize of Rs 50 lakhs each.

The function was made even more special with the attendance of a large chunk of team members from the 1983 World Cup-winning-squad. Kapil Dev, Sunil Gavaskar, Ravi Shastri, Balwinder Singh Sandhu and Yashpal Sharma were seen regeneration some of the old memories.

With the ICL now being obsolete, persons like Kapil and Sandhu have been welcomed back into the BCCI fold with open arms. The current crop of fast bowlers will be the happiest with this growth since the likes of Ishant Sharma and Munaf Patel were all ears when Kapil went upto them to share a trick or two.

“The most main thing is to go ahead and enjoy the game. Give it your best shot but it is significant that you enjoy your art,” the legendary Dev exhort to the young pacers during a dinner-table discussion.

For the record, former all-rounder Salim Durani was hand over the lifetime accomplishment award while Sachin Tendulkar was named Indian cricketer of the year for 2009-10.

The glorious evening ended with an audio-visual presentation of the memorable moments of Team India’s 2011 World Cup campaign. The interesting bit about this presentation was that each game was accompanied with a matching theme song.

While it was ‘De Ghuma Ke’ for the quarter-final win over Australia, nothing but ‘Chak De India’ resonate the air as everyone recollect those tense moments from that nerve-wracking victory over Pakistan in the semi-final.

‘Jai Ho’ it was when scenes from that magical night of April 2 was being played on the big-screen. No prizes for guess that the warmest and loudest clapping from the assembled players, Board functionaries and media went out for this particular sequence.

Guess no one can ever have sufficient of that amazing triumph!

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