IRANI CUP:SEHWAG TO CAPTAIN REST OF INDIA

Indian opener Virender Sehwag was on Wednesday named skipper of the Rest of India team for the Irani Cup, scheduled to be played in November-December.

The BCCI selection commitee, who met in Chennai, also selected the three teams for the Challenger Series, which will be held from October 8 to 11.

Yuvraj Singh will lead India Red, Suresh Raina will captain India Green and MS Dhoni will skipper India Blues, according to a statement issued by the BCCI.

Rest of India team for Irani Cup: Virender Sehwag (captain), Murali Vijay, S Badrinath (vice captain), Virat Kohli, Manoj Tiwari, Ravindra Jadeja, Irfan Pathan, Wriddiman Saha (wicketkeeper), S Sreesanth, Munaf Patel, Pragyan Ojha, Kedar Jadhav, Abhinav Mukund, Uday Kaul, Sudeep Tyagi.

SEHWAG SHINES IN KOLKATA FASHION WEEK

 

India's dashing opener Virender Sehwag walked the ramp at the Kolkata Fashion Week (KFW)-II here, sending the audience into raptures.Wearing a hand-woven sherwani suit, Sehwag exuded oodles of confidence as he walked the ramp for designer Rocky S. here on Wednesday night.

"Sehwag was perfectly chilled out in the attire. He was happy about what he was wearing," Rocky S. told mediapersons after the late night fashion event at a city hotel.

"When a person is confident about what he is wearing, it's half the battle won," he said.

Talking about his new collection, Rocky S. said, "This time I focused on colour and textile-based comfort oriented fashion wear. I tried to keep my collection very light so that it becomes more wearable.

"I used silk, hand-woven fabric mainly adopted from Benaras, and linen in my collection. I made this collection, especially keeping in mind the culture of Kolkata where hand-woven and colourful textiles are popular among people."

Asked why he had chosen a sportsman like Sehwag as a showstopper, Rocky S. said: "Sports is very important in India. So I've chosen a cricketer for the role."

SEHWAG STUNS DELHI CRICKET

The stunning newspaper report on last Monday set the proverbial cat among the piegons. Just like his bat, Sehwag had let loose a carnage of verbal volleys that shook Delhi cricket from its very roots.Sehwag told the paper: "In Ranji trophy selection, it has often happened that 4 selectors get together & vote for 'their' players, leaving the chairman of the committee and me defeated. Especially when I am on national duty, they put pressure on the stand-in captains and the interference becomes more rampant. This manipulation has been going on for many years. What is the point in continuing to play for such an association where there is so much corruption."

"This thing has been going for the last six-seven years but I am glad that Viru has come out in the open to clean up the DDCA," said former India and Delhi player Madan Lal.

"We have been saying this thing for a long time but when Virender expresses his feelings on the entire affair, people will have to take the matter seriously," said another former player Kirti Azad.

Even as the training camp for the new season got underway, the signs of a mutiny were all there. The sticking points were well known, only now they were in sharp focus.

The all-powerful sports committee that made crucial decisions such as chosing the selection panel did not include a single former cricketer. There was rampant manipulation and corruption in the under-16 and under-19 categories. Former cricketers such as Madan Lal, Kirti Azad, Maninder Singh and Surinder Khanna had been forced out from positions within the DDCA. The system of elections through proxy votes had bred corruption and nepotism. Unhappy players such as the talented Amit Mishra were forced out of the state by inconsistent selections.

"He (Sehwag) has set something good for cricket and the chairman of selectors Chetan Chauhan has also promised that we will listen to him," said Delhi selector Bantoo Singh.