West Indies in India

Untested right-arm seamer Lakshmipathy Balaji was on Tuesday called up by India for the next two one-day internationals against the West Indies. Balaji and left-arm spinner Murali Kartik will replace Ajit Agarkar and Anil Kumble for the matches to be played in Ahmedabad on Friday and Baroda on November 18, cricket board secretary Karunakaran Nair said. Balaji forced his way in after a string of good performances for Tamil Nadu in domestic cricket. Kartik, who played his solitary one-dayer against Zimbabwe earlier this year, returns after helping Railways win the Ranji Trophy last season. India trail 1-2 in the seven-match series. The team for the final two one-dayers at Jodhpur and Vijayawada will be selected after the Baroda match, Nair said. Indian squad: Sourav Ganguly (capt), Virender Sehwag, Venkatsai Laxman, Rahul Dravid, Yuvraj Singh, Mohammad Kaif, Harbhajan Singh, Sanjay Bangar, Murali Kartik, Javagal Srinath, Lakshmipathy Balaji, Dinesh Mongia, Jaiprakash Yadav, Ashish Nehra and Parthiv Patel. Former India all-rounder and national selector Kirti Azad has spoken of his shame after his country's controversial win in the third one-day match against West Indies. India were handed victory after the game in Rajkot was brought to a premature halt following yet more crowd trouble. "It is very unfortunate," said Azad, a member of the 1983 World Cup-winning squad. "It is against the spirit of the game. People should come to enjoy the game, not to disrupt it. "The crowd behaviour was really strange because India seemed to be in a winning position. I am really ashamed of what happened here." West Indies captain Carl Hooper refused to send his players back on the field after crowd halted play in the third one-dayer awarded to India, match referee Mike Proctor said on Tuesday. "Hooper did not want to continue playing the match and I agree with that decision," he told reporters. The match was awarded to India on the basis of the Duckworth/Lewis method after play was stopped with India on 200 for one in the 28th over chasing a target of 301. The third successive crowd-disrupted match in the series was abruptly stopped after West Indies fielder Vasbert Drakes was hit by a bottle thrown from the stands. Proctor said later: "West Indies did not want to take the field again because it was a third incident that happened, and I agreed." Hooper had rested himself for the match because of knee trouble and his deputy Ridley Jacobs led the side.

England in Australia

Marcus Trescothick will stand in as England captain for the three-day match against Australia 'A' starting in Hobart on Friday. The opening batsman will fill in for Nasser Hussain, who is due to fly to Perth at the weekend for the birth of his second child. England has no official vice captain and the appointment of Trescothick, who has led his country in a tour match in New Zealand and a one-day international, was no surprise. Australia's Test squad thrashed England in Brisbane last weekend by 384 runs in the first Ashes Test. The second Test opens in Adelaide on 21 November.

Sri Lanka in South Africa

Sri Lanka's two leading players, Sanath Jayasuriya and Muttiah Muralitharan, have major injury problems. Captain Jayasuriya has damaged ankle ligaments and is ruled out of the final Test against South Africa at Centurion Park starting on Friday. Although x-rays revealed the ankle was not broken, Jayasuriya will need two weeks rest before playing again. Meanwhile, off-spinner Muttiah Muralitharan has a hernia problem that could require surgery immediately after the match. Muralitharan is in no pain and will play in Pretoria. But team management fear the hernia could flare up later and jeopardise his chances of playing in next year's World Cup if it is not fixed quickly. Left hander Jean Mubarak is likely to replace Jayasuriya, with Marvan Atapattu taking on the captaincy. South Africa won the first Test at Johannesburg on Sunday by an innings and 64 runs.

Miscellaneous

West Indies all-rounder Runako Morton has been banned for a year after being found guilty of bringing the game into disrepute by the West Indies Cricket Board. Morton, Barbados left-arm spin bowler Sulieman Benn and fast bowler Tino Best were also fined 10%of their tour fees. In a statement, the WICB said they had taken the action because of "their conduct and behaviour during the West Indies A Team's visit to Ireland, Britain and Canada during the summer." Morton's ban was imposed after he was found guilty of "engineering an early departure" from the ICC Champions Trophy series in Sri Lanka last September. The WICB did not say what the players had done, but Morton left Sri Lanka early citing a family bereavement. Daryll Cullinan's surprising new pally-pally relationship with the United Cricket Board may be good news for the game, but it is bad news for those scrapping to try to emulate his feats. Players battling it out for middle order batting positions in the South African team are normally as steady as drunken sailors come selection time, and the seemingly imminent return of "DJ" will make them even more jittery. There are those who feel Cullinan has no place in any South African team again after what he did before the Newlands Test against the Aussies, but after admitting he "could have handled the situation differently" he seems back in the board's good books. Selection convener Omar Henry is certainly making no bones about that and even attended Cullinan's big "apology" press conference this week. The 35-year-old Cullinan still seems to be enjoying his cricket and has indicated that he still has a couple of seasons left in him yet. "As a player, I feel confident about what I can do and physically and mentally I am in the right frame of mind to play a role," Cullinan said. There are any number of positions that could be his for the taking, should the selectors so decide. The middle order has always been the source of some debate. The England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) has announced that its new 20-over-a-side domestic competition will go by the name Twenty20. Full fixtures and further details of the competition will be unveiled on Wednesday, along with all the other match details for the 2003 season in England. A spokesman for the ECB said that Twenty20 would not be seeking the backing of a single company to support the competion. "We are looking for a family of sponsors rather than a headline sponsor," he said. "It would be more like a Champions League-style of sponsorship." The BBC is likely to be involved in providing live audio commentary from some of the games.

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