  India in New Zealand |
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New Zealand pace bowler Kyle Mills has received backing for his controversial bowling action from an unlikely quarter - Indian cricket captain Sourav Ganguly.
Mills' slightly mechanical action has been the subject of much debate this summer with Sky Television's endless slow motion replays hinting at a snap in his arm at the point of delivery.
After the chucking furore on the eve of the fifth match in Wellington, Ganguly made a point of personally approaching Mills after the coin toss to offer his support and yesterday he went into bat for him publicly. "I was surprised to see your own people talk about him more than anybody else," Ganguly said.
| World Cup |
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The best Indian cricket team will play in the World Cup, but the legal wrangling over sponsorship is likely to continue. On Friday, all 15 members of the World Cup squad signed the contentious ICC player contracts, with certain riders attached.
But given the fact that the ICC is unlikely to accept the caveats, an uncertain process of arbitration is likely to ensue.
"The Indian players (and the BCCI) have agreed to nothing more than they already have, the ICC has agreed to reduce nothing. The Indians had to sign their contracts before the January 14 deadline and that they have done, and tagged on their demands," said a senior BCCI official.
The issue now revolves around the question of damages - which will be decided by the Court for Arbitration of Sport (CAS) in Lausanne. If it rules in favour of the ICC, the BCCI will have to pay heavy damages to the world body. If the decision goes the other way, the ICC will be in a tangle. "If the CAS rules that the ICC contract amounts to unfair trade practice, then we stand validated," said a BCCI official.
One of the clauses of the contract requires players' sponsors to stop airing advertisements of companies in competition with ICC sponsors a month before the Cup. That period began on Thursday and the adverts are still on.
"We have made our statement clear that this is what we can do and this is what we can't. The rest is up to the ICC," skipper Sourav Gangulysaid.
India's cricketers have signed their World Cup playing contracts but without agreeing to the controversial clause preventing them from keeping deals with personal sponsors, reports say.
It means the team are fast reaching an impasse with the International Cricket Council (ICC), the organisers of the World Cup which starts on 9 February.
Sourav Ganguly's men, currently touring New Zealand, have met the 14 January deadline for signing the contracts.
But they are unlikely to be accepted in their current form.
The ICC refuses to allow players to endorse non-official sponsors 30 days before and five days after the World Cup.
Players sponsors are often direct competitors to the official ones.
The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has already told the ICC it cannot force its players to forgo existing personal deals.
Captain Ganguly was quoted by the Press Trust of India news agency as saying "We have told the ICC what our problems are.
"We have given our terms and conditions. There are certain areas that need to be looked into."
In addition to protecting their own interests, the players are not willing to let their images be used by the official sponsors for three months after the event.
England cricket bosses are set to make a final decision next Tuesday on whether England should play their controversial World Cup fixture in Zimbabwe.
And it now seems highly probable that Nasser Hussain's men will be given the green light to play their 13 February fixture in the southern African nation.
The England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) has announced a special management board meeting to discuss the issue.
Its 15 members are expected to decide the game should be played, barring a major development or re-think.
The Government, opposed to England playing the match in Harare, are already privately resigned to it going ahead.
Australia leg-spinner Shane Warne believes his bid to regain full fitness for next month's World Cup defence is on schedule after bowling eight overs in his comeback match from a shoulder injury.
Warne was smashed for three sixes in a row and conceded 53 runs for one wicket playing for Victoria in a domestic limited-overs game against Western Australia at Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG) on Friday.
"The shoulder has pulled up fine. I wasn't expected to dive as far as I was going to at first slip (to take a catch), that wasn't part of the plan," Warne told reporters.
"From a personal point of view, I'm rapt basically to get through my overs and get through my first game, get over the nerves."
Although his performance was below his normal standards, the sight of Warne back in action was a welcome relief for Australian cricket fans after a week in which they lost the last Ashes Test to England and were humiliated by Sri Lanka in a one-day international.
England all-rounder Andrew Flintoff faces a fitness Test on Monday to prove he can represent his country in next month's World Cup.
The Lancastrian has been struggling for form and fitness since undergoing a double hernia operation in August.
And, despite those injury problems, he was included in England's initial 15-man squad for the World Cup.
But on Monday he will face a series of Tests in a bid to prove he has fully recovered from surgery.
England captain Nasser Hussain insisted he would take no risks over injuries at the tournament.
"We'll be patient but we struggled around Australia with injured players during the Test series and I don't want to struggle through the World Cup with injuries as well," said Hussain.
| Miscellaneous |
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Former Sri Lanka captain Arjuna Ranatunga has won a legal battle in his attempt to head the country's cricket administration.
The Supreme Court in Colombo upheld a petition by Ranatunga, who is a member of parliament.
He had argued a proposed sports law which prevented politicians from holding office in sports bodies was a "violation of his fundamental rights".
The state was ordered to pay legal costs to the former cricket captain who led Sri Lanka to World Cup glory in 1996.
Sports Minister Johnston Fernando introduced the proposed law in parliament in February 2002 with the aim of de-politicising the country's sports administration.
However Ranatunga saw the law as a tool to stop him from becoming the president of the Board of Control for Cricket in Sri Lanka (BCCSL).
He said: "When I heard about the policy, I felt that someone was trying to drag me out of sports, an area in which I wanted to help,"
He joined politics after retiring from international cricket in August 2000.
Ranatunga was elected a member of Sri Lanka's parliament a year later.
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