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/ 12 October 2006
South African opener Herschelle Gibbs will not earn an automatic let-off after questioning on Thursday in the Indian capital over a match-fixing and betting scandal, police warned. ”If it is established that he did it, we cannot say he will be let off,” additional police commissioner Deependra Pathak said as the interrogation started.
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/ 11 October 2006
Captain Graeme Smith and Jacques Kallis led from the front as South Africa warmed up for the Champions Trophy with a dazzling batting display on Wednesday. Left-handed Smith smashed 90 off 54 balls and Kallis hammered 78 as the Proteas piled up 303-8 from 50 overs after being sent in to bat by the Saurashtra Ranji Trophy team in a practice match.
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/ 11 October 2006
South Africa’s Champions Trophy squad threw a security blanket around Herschelle Gibbs after he arrived in India on Wednesday to be probed for match-fixing allegations. Gibbs arrived in the western metropolis of Mumbai where the South Africans are based for the 10-nation tournament and was promptly whisked away to the team hotel to avoid the media stationed at the airport.
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/ 10 October 2006
In-form opener Upul Tharanga’s second consecutive hundred guided Sri Lanka to a 144-run victory over Zimbabwe and a qualifiers’ slot in the main rounds of the Champions Trophy on Tuesday. The 21-year-old left-hander hit 13 fours and a six in his 130-ball 110 as Sri Lanka, opting to bat, made 285-7 in the day-night game to notch up their second straight win in the four-team qualifiers.
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/ 10 October 2006
Speedsters Shane Bond and Shoaib Akhtar may have been dogged with serious injuries but both are still boldly warning of no let-up in their fiery bowling. ”I am hoping to bowl at my fastest and get stronger as the tournament gets on,” said Bond, who recovered from a knee injury just in time for the Champions Trophy.
Banned Pakistan captain Inzamam-ul-Haq will not be able to play in the Champions Trophy final if his team qualifies, the International Cricket Council (ICC) ruled on Monday. Inzamam was banned for four one-day internationals last month after being found guilty of bringing the game into disrepute.
South Africa captain Graeme Smith said on Friday that his team was one of the favourites to lift the Champions Trophy and that his players were raring to go. ”We are ranked second in the world and there is no shying away from the fact that we are one of the top teams,” Smith told reporters.
South African batsman Herschelle Gibbs is likely to be questioned by Indian police over a 2000 match-fixing scandal during the Champion’s Trophy which starts on Saturday, officials said. The 32-year-old, who has played 79 Tests, had admitted accepting money from disgraced former captain Hansie Cronje to score fewer than 20 runs against India.
The International Cricket Council warned the Indian cricket board on Wednesday that its refusal to sign a commercial document for global events could jeopardise its joint World Cup planned for 2011. The cash-rich Board of Control for Cricket in India is refusing to sign a Members’ Participation Agreement needed from national boards for finalising the ICC’s sponsorship deal.
The Indian media on Wednesday predicted the end of Sourav Ganguly’s cricket career after the former captain failed miserably in a trial one-day series. The left-hander, making a last-ditch attempt to regain his place in the Indian team, made 24 and three in the two matches he played in the domestic Challenger series in Chennai over the last three days.
The International Cricket Council’s Champions Trophy begins on Saturday amid greater anticipation than usual with the tournament acting as the first leg of an exciting six months of cricket, highlighted by the Ashes and next year’s World Cup. World champions Australia start as favourites, as they have in every one-day tournament over the last decade.
West Indian great Clive Lloyd will mastermind the campaign of Brian Lara’s team during the Champions Trophy one-day tournament starting in India on Saturday. Lloyd, captain of World Cup-winning teams in 1975 and 1979, has been appointed a consultant to coach Bennett King and Lara during the 10-nation event, the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) said in a statement on Tuesday.
Zimbabwe are braced for their latest trial by fire in the heat of the Champions Trophy. Barring a miracle, their trip to India will be brief. The team, still sitting out Test matches, have to play the qualifying tournament with matches against Sri Lanka, West Indies and Bangladesh. Only two sides will make the latter stages.
India said on Sunday it would give Pakistan evidence found by its investigators linking Pakistan’s spy agency and an Islamist militant group to deadly bomb blasts in Mumbai that killed 186 people in July. The comments by India’s new foreign secretary came a day after police in Mumbai said they had solid proof that Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence agency had masterminded the carnage.
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/ 30 September 2006
Indian police on Saturday blamed July’s deadly train bombings in Mumbai on Pakistan’s intelligence agency and the outlawed pro-Pakistan militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba. ”We have solved the 7/11 bomb blast case,” Mumbai Police Commissioner AN Roy said, referring to the July 11 attacks that killed 186 people and injured more than 800.
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/ 30 September 2006
Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh left on Saturday on a four-day trip to South Africa aimed at enhancing cultural and economic ties between the two countries. Singh is scheduled to inaugurate the centenary celebrations of the launch of the Satyagraha peaceful resistance movement by Mahatma Gandhi during his trip.
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/ 29 September 2006
India and South Africa, two of the world’s leading emerging markets, hope to boost business links as Prime Minister Manmohan Singh visits the African nation this week to build on their historic ties. The two major developing nations would push efforts to boost investments in telecommunications, information technology, infrastructure and pharmaceuticals during the visit, Indian officials said.
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/ 27 September 2006
Police fired teargas shells in Indian Kashmir on Wednesday to quell violent protests over the planned execution of a Kashmiri man for his role in a 2001 militant attack on India’s Parliament. Hundreds of Kashmiri men took to the streets of Srinagar, the region’s main city, hurling stones at police and vehicles, burning tyres and blocking roads.
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/ 26 September 2006
India have asked the International Cricket Council (ICC) to omit Australian umpire Darrell Hair from next month’s Champions Trophy, an ICC spokesperson said on Tuesday. ”Yes, I can confirm that a letter has been written by the Indian board,” the spokesperson said from the ICC’s Dubai headquarters.
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/ 25 September 2006
A 36-year-old woman in the eastern Indian state of Orissa was locked in a cramped, windowless room by her family for over two decades, a newspaper reported on Monday. Swarnaprava Pandava has been confined at her family residence in eastern Kendrapara district by her parents who said she was mentally deranged, the Times of India daily reported.
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/ 20 September 2006
Storms caused by a depression in the Bay of Bengal have killed more than 40 people in eastern India and Bangladesh and left hundreds of fishermen missing at sea, officials said on Wednesday. Thousands of people have been left homeless. Most of the deaths came in the southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh, where heavy rains and strong winds caused flash floods.
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/ 11 September 2006
South Africa wants to treble two-way trade with India to -billion by 2010, Deputy President Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka said on Monday as she invited Indian firms to invest in the African nation’s infrastructure and IT sectors. India’s exports to South Africa grew by 58% to ,55-billion in the fiscal year to March 2006, while imports were up by 11,44% to ,45-billion, government data shows.
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/ 8 September 2006
At least 31 people, mostly worshippers at weekly Islamic prayers, were killed and up to 75 injured in a series of explosions in a Muslim-majority town in western India on Friday, police said. The blasts came days after Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said that intelligence agencies had warned of more terrorist attacks across the country.
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/ 7 September 2006
At least 54 miners were feared dead in eastern India after the roof of a state-owned coal mine collapsed following an explosion, a mine official said on Thursday. The incident took place in the Dhanbad district of the eastern state of Jharkhand late on Wednesday.
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/ 6 September 2006
Australia’s Ricky Ponting, Rahul Dravid of India and Sri Lankan Mahela Jayawardene lead the nominations for this year’s International Cricket Council (ICC) awards. The trio of captains were among those short-listed on Wednesday for best player in Tests, one-dayers and overall categories for performances between August 1 2005 and August 8 2006.
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/ 6 September 2006
At least one million people have lost their homes to floods in eastern India, but the government’s relief effort is slow and inadequate, voluntary groups said on Wednesday. The flooding, triggered by annual monsoon rains over the past week, has hit an area where 2,3-million people live and damaged thousands of hectares of paddy in the coastal state of Orissa.
At least 35 people were feared dead after a boat capsized in the Ganges river on the outskirts of Patna, the capital of India’s eastern state of Bihar, police said on Thursday. Authorities said the boat was carrying about 60 passengers, including farmers and children, when it sank.
Watching a dead body being bathed in "holy" river water for a funeral may be an unusual thing to do for a guided tour, but that’s the point of an outing with Nigel Hankin. Almost everything about the "Nigel tour" of Delhi is far from the usual, right down to seeking an appointment — the 87-year-old Hankin does not have a telephone or internet connection.
At least 150 bodies have been recovered since last week following flash floods caused by heavy monsoon rains in India’s desert state of Rajasthan, officials said on Monday. The toll has risen sharply since Sunday as rescue workers continue to find more bodies as flood waters fell in the normally drought-prone area.
A restaurant in India’s financial hub has agreed to change its name from Hitler’s Cross following strong protests by the country’s tiny Jewish community and pressure from Israel. Hitler’s Cross, which opened a week ago using posters of the Führer and Nazi swastikas for publicity, initially refused to change its name.
England would topple Australia as the world’s top Test team if they successfully defend the Ashes by the unlikely margin of three victories. England, who won the Ashes in 2005 for the first time in 18 years, moved to within 11 rating points of Australia after clinching second spot in the International Cricket Council rankings after the 3-0 series triumph against Pakistan.
Thousands of people flocked to temples in northern India on Monday hoping to see a miracle as word spread that idols of Hindu gods were drinking milk, television reports said. Television pictures showed milk disappearing as people held up spoons full of the liquid to idols of deities such as Lord Shiva and Ganesha.