McGrath to spend two weeks in Ind
Melbourne: To ensure there is no repeat of the disastrous show by Australia where they lost 0-4 to India, Cricket Australia has decided to send pace legend Glenn McGrath on a two-week tour to India to work with a group of AIS scholars from CA’s Centre of Excellence in Brisbane. The Men from Down Under suffered a whitewash at the hands of India in the Border-Gavaskar Test series earlier this year and Cricket Australia felt there was need for more experience in sub-continental conditions. As part of CA’s Australian Institute of Sport (AIS) scholarship programme, the group consisting of Peter Handscomb, Kurtis Patterson, Joel Paris, Gurinder Sandhu, Josh Hazlewood, Matt Fotia will work with McGrath, who heads the MRF Pace Foundation academy in Chennai. Former pacer Craig McDermott will also be working with the group in those two weeks. “India is so different to Australia in nearly every way. The climate, the conditions, the sheer amount of people there, the food, and then the playing conditions as well. It’s going to be high 30s, early 40s every day. It’ll be pretty warm,” McGrath was quoted as saying by the CA website. It is hoped that working with the likes of McGrath on this tour will help the scholars should they be selected for Australia in the future.
Sreesanth offers ‘thulabharam’
Kochi: Disgraced India pacer S Sreesanth, out on bail after being arrested in the IPl spot fixing case, on Friday offered ‘thulabharam’, a ritual, at the famous Sree Poornathrayeesa temple of lord Vishnu at nearby Tripunithura on Friday morning. ‘Thulabharam’ is an important ritual in temples in Kerala in which devotees sit in a balance and offer coconut, banana, sugar or jaggery equal to their body weight. The suspended Rajasthan Royals player was weighed in ‘kadli’ plantain.
conditional bail for Aggarwal
Chennai: Hotelier Vikram Aggarwal, arrested in connection with the IPl betting case, was granted conditional bail by a court here. Metropolitan Magistrate S Saravanan granted bail to Aggarwal on the condition that he should appear before the Crime Branch CID every day and surrender his passport. Aggarwal was arrested on June 10 by the CB-CID police at the end of a seven-hour-long grilling over his alleged links with a bookie and betting on cricket matches of Indian Premier league. The relief for Aggarwal came a day after he was lodged in the central prison here on expiry of his police custody. He had on Thursday complained of chest pain, when he was taken to a government hospital before being sent to the prison.
IPl issue: fresh plea filed
Madurai: Alleging that the IPl “was a tacit arrangement” with the underworld in match fixing and spot fixing, a fresh petition was on Friday filed in the High Court bench here, seeking a direction to CBI to probe all cricketing “scams” since 2008 with assistance of the Interpol. The plea was part of a writ petition which sought a direction to the Ministry of Youth Welfare and Sports to takeover the administration of cricket from IPl and BCCI. The plea would be taken up for hearing along with the main petition for which reply from the government was pending, on June 20. Both pleas have been filed by city-based lawyer V Santhakumaresan. Agencies