NEW DELHI: Record-breaking Indian batsman Sachin Tendulkar will make a rare appearance in domestic four-day cricket next week to gain match practice ahead of the home Test series against England.
The 39-year-old, the world’s leading scorer in both Test and one-day cricket, was named yeserday in a 13-man Mumbai squad for a four-day Ranji Trophy match against Railways starting in Mumbai on November 2.
Tendulkar, whose last Ranji appearance was in 2009, struggled in a home Test series against New Zealand in August-September when he scored just 63 runs in three innings.
Legendary Indian opener Sunil Gavaskar even suggested during the second Test against New Zealand in Bangalore that Tendulkar’s reflexes were on the slide after the batsman was bowled in all three innings.
Tendulkar has made a record 51 Test centuries but has now gone 25 innings without a hundred in the five-day game since making 146 against South Africa in Cape Town in January 2011.
He has scored a world record Test (15,553) and one-day (18,426) runs and has also compiled an unprecedented 100 international centuries.
The selectors also named India’s left-arm paceman Zaheer Khan in the Mumbai side.
England open their tour with a three-day practice match against India ‘A’ in Mumbai on October 30. It will be followed by two more warm-up games before the four-Test series starts in Ahmedabad on November 15.
The tourists, who also play two Twenty20 internationals on the first leg of their tour, will go home for Christmas and return for a five-match one-day series starting on January 11.
Pakistan to launch T20 league in March
LAHORE: Pakistan will launch its Premier League Twenty20 tournament in March as it bids to lure more international cricketers back to the country.
Touring sides have shunned Pakistan since a militant attack on Sri Lanka players in 2009 but last weekend an International World XI took on a Pakistan All Star team in two T20 games.
“We have decided to go ahead with the PL as this is the best time for us to bring back some international cricket to Pakistan,” Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) chairman Zaka Ashraf said.
South African turned down a request from the PCB to adjust the dates for Pakistan’s tour from January to March next year as the tour ends on March 24th, about the same time the Premier League is to be launched.
The Indian Premier League, the most successful T20 competition amid a raft of new tournaments in south Asia, is set to start around April 4.
“We just need a two week window to have our first event and we can manage that despite the South African tour,” Ashraf said, adding that five franchises with a pool of 30 overseas players were in the pipeline.
Meanwhile Ashraf has ruled out any plans to hire former test captain Salim Malik as the next batting coach of the national team. Malik, who was banned for life in 2000 by a judicial inquiry commission for his role in match-fixing, has applied for the batting coach position after stating that the supreme court had cleared him in the case. Agencies
