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Here we go with another round of the almost threadbare personality debate, as if one great saviour from afar or at home will save us from the seemingly interminable decline of West Indies cricket.I know many who still harbour hopes of a revival sometime in the foreseeable future, or even a few of those who are resigned to things becoming increasingly bleak, are tired of being hammered over the head with all of this negative news surrounding something that has given us all so much pride and joy for such a long time. In protesting that they have had enough, their concern is essentially that there seems to be almost an eagerness to pick apart whatever vestiges of respectability that are left.There is certainly some merit to that argument, yet it still seems that too many people, especially a few in positions of influence, harbour the belief that it’s nothing that an academy, a superstar coach, plenty money and a fully professional league won’t sort out in a few short years. Will it really matter if the West Indies Cricket Board chooses to again go foreign in appointing the apparent favourite, Dav Whatmore, as head coach?On the other hand, can Ottis Gibson or any other Caribbean candidate do anything meaningful to even slow the decline (I think we’re all agreed now that the turnaround that many were confidently predicting year after year was just a mirage)?More and more, those who were prepared to be guarded in their observations, for fear of being seen as jealous former players only intent on hitting our current crop of heroes for six, are starting to swing for the hills in the manner of the just-concluded Twenty20 World Cup.A report in yesterday’s Nation newspaper in Barbados highlighted just the latest of those instances, with the greatest all-round cricketer of them all venting his frustration that our once proud legacy has come to this extremely sorry pass, due in no small measure to players who seem totally disconnected from their relevance as West Indies cricketers.

“Players have to start thinking about the game as a team game and go out there and try and play the best for their team and forget self performances,” said Sir Garfield Sobers, who was speaking after participating in the opening ceremony of the island’s National Heroes Gallery and Museum of Parliament on Wednesday. “Cricket in the West Indies is very important to the people in the West Indies, even if the players don’t think it’s important to them.”None of this is especially earth-shattering, as we’ve heard it said by many personalities before over the past decade. But when someone of Sobers’ stature takes a turn in the players’ tail, you know it can’t just be dismissed as the ranting of some run-of-the-mill naysayer.The only living member of Barbados’ current list of ten officially designated National Heroes, Sobers was assigned to work with the senior West Indies squad as an adviser in October 2004 at the same time that Bennett King had commenced his term as head coach. Many viewed the appointment as a public relations exercise to soften the public backlash at choosing a foreigner to take charge of the regional side.His comments of two days ago suggest that even if he were sincere and committed to the effort, the reaction of the players turned the whole thing into a waste of time.”A lot of the young (players) think players like myself, Sir Everton Weekes and Wes Hall have passed and have nothing to pass on, but that is where they are wrong,” he contended. “I think we have more to pass on. We’ve been through it, we know what it’s like, we know how to build a team and what a team needs to win.”Again, we’ve heard this all before from other sources, except that you can almost feel the deep sense of hurt in Sir Garfield’s words. I wonder if he was ever made aware that another left-hander of more recent vintage (no, not Brian Lara) once claimed to be better than Sobers after being admonished by a member of the technical staff for a particularly poor shot in the nets during the 2001 home series against South Africa?Incidents like that which used to raise eyebrows or cause others to splutter in disbelief, are now accepted as a matter of course from this lost generation of pretenders. Almost everyone can refer to his or her favourite moment, either on or off the field, that encapsulates the causes for the plummet from the summit. It may be a wild swipe when the match could still have been saved or a wild swipe at a teammate at a nightclub bar.Never let it be said that the champions of previous eras were all paragons of virtue, certainly not Sobers, who enjoyed the good life and nightlife as much as anyone else. Yet as his peerless record reveals (8,032 runs at 57.78, 235 wickets at 34.03 and 109 catches in 93 matches – to go into further detail will require two more columns), he never let external distractions get in the way of delivering on the field.Compare that with the abysmal statistics racked up by most of their strutting, image-conscious successors, and you realise that the more our golden icons expose the naked emperors who now represent us, the better the chances of reality taking root and bearing fruit in the next generation.

Virender Sehwag has been virtually ruled out of the first one-dayer against South Africa to be played in Johannesburg on Sunday after it was revealed that the dressing on his injured right ring finger would only come off on Sunday. “His [Sehwag’s] injury is not serious as such but the stitches would come off only on Sunday morning and we hope the problem doesn’t extend beyond the first game,” Greg Chappell, the coach, was quoted as saying by the Press Trust of India.Sehwag suffered a cut on the finger during practice ahead of India’s tour match on Thursday, November 16, and required four stitches. He took no part in the game, which the Indians lost by 37 runs, but was present at the ground with his team-mates.India begin their one-day campaign on November 19, and while Sehwag might miss the first match, it is hoped that he will be fit in time for the second match, to be played at Durban on November 22. If Sehwag is ruled out, India now have to choose between Wasim Jaffer, who would be front-runner to partner Sachin Tendulkar at the top of the order, and Dinesh Karthik, the wicketkeeper batsman. Rahul Dravid too is an option, having often in the past stepped in as opener when the situation required.India are already without Yuvraj Singh, a key player in the one-day team, after he suffered an injury to the cruciate ligament of his left knee last month. Sehwag’s latest injury got India’s tour of South Africa off to an inauspicious start. Having gone through a lean patch in ODIs, Sehwag had shown signs of a revival in his most recent innings, a streaky half-century against Australia in the Champions Trophy clash at Mohali.In some good news for the Indians, though, Chappell has fully recovered from the food poisoning that laid him low and prevented him from supervising the practice session ahead of the warm-up match.

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Orissa and Railways are two teams unlikely to attract crowds at the bestof times, with the likes of Debashish Mohanty, Harvinder Singh and SanjayBangar – all low-key players even when they played for India – being thebiggest stars about. And when Orissa who lost the toss and were put in,were kept down to only 101 for 8 in 20 overs, what little interest therewas died. There was a brief flutter of excitement when Railways went from 85for 3 to 87 for 7 in their chase, but by then the match as a contest hadended. Soon enough they knocked off the required runs with three wicketsto spare.It wasn’t as though one brilliant spell from a bowler caused havoc. Orissajust did not seem to have a plan over how to approach their innings, andall batsmen came – and went – swinging merrily. The wickets were sharedaround, and fell in clutches, with the spinners doing most of the damage.G Shankar Rao, the left-arm spinner, picked up 3 for 20, while KulamaniParida, the offie, grabbed 2 for 12.It was an utterly disappointing batting performance, with no batsman evenmaking a quarter-century, which could well be the ‘decent’ individual score in this form of the game. Only one batsman even made 20, and that was Niranjan Behera, who top-scored with23. From the start of the sixth over till as late as the fourth ball ofthe 16th over – which amounts to 70 balls – not a single boundary wasstruck.Sanjay Bangar began Railways’ chase well enough, carting the second andthird balls of the innings for a six over the bowler’s head and a fourpast point respectively. Off the very next ball, though, he edged to thekeeper. From then on it was the TP Singh-show all the way. He hit fourfours and a six in his 32-ball 40 that all but settled the game inRailways’ favour. When he fell with the score on 85, Paresh Patel strucktwice in as many balls, and then Behera prised out another wicket with thescore still on 87, and there was a bit of a flutter, but Baburao Yadav smacked15 to seal the deal with almost four overs to spare.
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It was a quiet day all round in the competition, with Karnataka playing inthe morning, having lost to Punjab just the previous evening. Karnatakanotched up their first win, by four wickets, after winning the toss andsending Gujarat in. Parthiv Patel and Azhar Bilakhia got Gujarat off to aflyer, getting to 55 in just 5.2 overs before they lost their firstwicket.Bilakhia went on to make 62, a rare half-century in this tournament, offonly 47 balls with 6 fours and a six. Patel had made 26, but there were noother scores of note in the Gujarat innings. They stitched together 151, adecent enough score, but it proved to be too few.All eyes were on Rahul Dravid, playing his first-ever Twenty20 match, buthe barely created an impression. He lasted just 8 balls, scoring asolitary single, barely attempting a big shot in his stay at the crease.Robin Uthappa, another player whose game is ideally suited to thistruncated version of the game, failed once more, using up 16 balls for 6,before hitting a catch to Biswajit Solanki off Hitesh Majmudar.Fortunately for Karnataka though Deepak Chougule had no such problems. Heplayed a string of innovative shots and succeeded in getting the ball overthe wicketkeeper’s head for boundaries more than once, scoring an unbeaten41 from 36 balls with five fours. B Akhil (35) and R Vinaykumar (24)chipped in with vital contributions in the lower middle-order, seeingKarnataka home with 3 balls to spare.

The local slogan for the Ashes is “It’s definitely on!” Finally, after 15 months of build-up, it’s definitely here. When the toss-winning captain chooses to bat on a fast Gabba pitch on Thursday morning the most hyped series will begin and the players will be the happiest of all.Both captains – and teams – have tired of questions and are ready to start answering with performances. “We just want to get started,” an impatient Andrew Flintoff said. “Now it’s time to get on the pitch and start going. It’s nice that it’s over.”But can the series live up to the 2005 model? And will the disappointment be justified if it doesn’t? It seems impossible that five Tests, which have already attracted record-breaking sales, could satisfy lead-up coverage that has continued to rise like floodwaters.Ricky Ponting has the most heavily magnified job in Australia as he begins a campaign that will define his career as captain. One Ashes loss was sloppy, but a second would be an etching no amount of minnow-belting could erase. Since The Oval last September Australia have won 11 of 12 Tests and their toughest contests came from South Africa, who are currently ranked sixth, and Bangladesh at the end of an exhausting stretch.Both sides’ preparations have suffered blips but England will offer Australia their greatest assignment since the 2-1 failure that sparked a boom of interest in both countries. Ponting has been a career cricketer since he was 16 and his heartbeat remains settled for run-of-the-mill matches. This time even he has been influenced by the occasion.

“The excitement is starting to overflow for everybody,” Ponting said. “I think it’s important that we keep a check on that. Not to get too carried away with things and not to try to make things happen too quickly.” England won the big moments at home last year and none will be larger than the opening session.Flintoff was the key cast member and he has grabbed another role by adding captaincy to his allrounder status. Pour in his recovery from an ankle injury and he faces an unenviable task to carry his nation.”The 2005 win was a huge achievement,” he said. “To have the opportunity to defend them in Australia is even bigger. If we can pull it off it will be something amazing.”England’s biggest decision hovers over whether to push for the extra batting credentials of Ashley Giles or the more aggressive bowling of Monty Panesar. Left-arm spin has not been Australia’s favourite method over the past decade and the choice will give a guide to England’s outlook for the series.Australia were forced into some restructuring due to Shane Watson’s hamstring injury, which gave Michael Clarke a chance and trimmed the attack from five bowlers to four. Shaun Tait was dropped from the squad on Wednesday and the final space will be fought between Stuart Clark and Mitchell Johnson. Clark’s experience and his Man-of-the-Series performance in South Africa last March give him the edge over the uncapped Johnson.The pitch will suit the fast men and the curator Kevin Mitchell junior tipped the surface to be the quickest of his tenure. It will have the usual green tinges but the captain who wins the toss will not follow Nasser Hussain’s mistake of 2002-03.”Since the rebuild of the stadium in 2000 it’s the quickest it’s been,” Mitchell said. “It will have early life, although I’m not sure how long it will last.” Mitchell could have been speaking about the series as a whole.Australia (possible) 1 Matthew Hayden, 2 Justin Langer, 3 Ricky Ponting (capt), 4 Damien Martyn, 5 Michael Hussey, 6 Michael Clarke, 7 Adam Gilchrist (wk), 8 Shane Warne, 9 Brett Lee, 10 Stuart Clark, 11 Glenn McGrath.England (possible) 1 Andrew Strauss, 2 Alastair Cook, 3 Ian Bell, 4 Paul Collingwood, 5 Kevin Pietersen, 6 Andrew Flintoff (capt), 7 Geraint Jones (wk), 8 Ashley Giles, 9 Matthew Hoggard, 10 Steve Harmison, 11 James Anderson.

As has often been the case in recent years, Pakistan’s build-up for a major international assignment has been disrupted by an off-field ruckus, and not for the first time a certain Shoaib Akhtar has held centre stage. Shoaib is now cooling his heels back home, and the victim of his alleged assault, Mohammad Asif, will have to lead the way with the ball as Pakistan look to end a run of underwhelming performances at the global level that dates back to 1999.Bat play: Few of the Scottish players are household names but some will remember Gavin Hamilton’s performances at the 1999 World Cup. The squad also has Dougie Brown, whose county career as an allrounder began 15 years ago. Neil McCallum and Ryan Watson, the captain, are others to watch for.For Pakistan, this is a step into the unknown, the first time in a decade that they have gone into a competition of this magnitude without either Inzamam-ul-Haq or Mohammad Yousuf. Shahid Afridi and Imran Nazir will lead the bludgeon brigade but just as vital will be the contributions from the two nudgers and accumulators in the middle order, Shoaib Malik and Younis Khan.Wrecking ball: John Blain, who once tried his luck with Falkirk in Scottish football, and Craig Wright, the former captain, will be key with the ball, as will a young off-break bowler, Majid Haq, with roots in Pakistan.With Shoaib gone, Asif and Umar Gul will most likely be Pakistan’s new-ball pairing, with Iftikhar Anjum and Yasir Arafat providing the back-up. Malik, Afridi and Abdur Rehman are the spin options, and there could also be a place for the all-round abilities of Mohammad Hafeez.Keep your eyes on: Afridi should be a star in this format, as will Nazir. Pakistan also boast one of the strongest bowling line-ups in the competition, and this gentle opener will set them up perfectly for a tilt against India on Friday.Shop talk: “We have got a number of batsmen who can score quickly. That’s a great strength that we have. Someone like Afridi can get a 50 off 15 balls. He can hit the best bowling attack all over. We have a very strong battling line-up. They all play attacking cricket. If Pakistan play to their potential, they can be an extremely dangerous side.” – Geoff Lawson, the Pakistan coach, on his team’s chances.Pitching it right: Bright sunshine is predicted for Tuesday, and Pakistan’s bowlers will doubtless enjoy the pace and bounce on offer at Kingsmead. The batting looks less formidable, but it’s unlikely that Scotland possess the arsenal to ask too many questions.

TeamsPakistan (likely): Imran Nazir, Salman Butt, Younis Khan, Kamran Akmal (wk), Shoaib Malik (capt), Shahid Afridi, Misbah ul Haq, Yasir Arafat, Iftikhar Anjum, Mohammad Asif, Umer Gul

Scotland (from): Ryan Watson (capt), Fraser Watts, Dougie Brown, John Blain, GavinHamilton, Navdeep Poonia, Gregor Maiden, Neil McCallum, Qasim Sheikh, Colin Smith (wk),Craig Wright, Dewald Nel, Gordon Drummond, Ross Lyons, Majid Haq

Rahul Dravid’s 100th Test turned out to be a bitterly disappointing one, and at the post-match press conference, the captain admitted that his decision to field first at Mumbai was a mistake. However, he stressed that the result could still have been a better one had the top-order batsmen done their job.”Yes, in hindsight when you look at the result of the game definitely I would have changed the decision I made right upfront,” he stated. Clarifying the reasons for the move, he said: “We’d taken five bowlers, and we had three seamers, and we thought there’d be a bit more bounce and seam movement early. We thought we could get a few wickets there, restrict them to a low score, and then bat big in the first innings to set the game up. It didn’t do as much as we expected in the first session, they batted well, and once they’d got 270 for 3 on the first day we knew we were on the back foot.”Dravid refused to accept, though, that the decision at the toss was the major reason for the defeat. “Obviously the decision to bowl wasn’t the right one, but having said that we could have lost the toss and we would have fielded in any case. We could have played much better cricket, especially our batting in both innings, I think the top-order batting has let us down right through the series. We did well to recover to 279, but then again in the second innings I don’t think this was a 100-all-out wicket.”Going into the final day, Dravid indicated that he was satisfied with the position India were in. “I was very happy with the way we bowled yesterday. Our bowlers did a great job to restrict them and I was very happy with the situation as it was in the morning. I thought if we could get to lunch and to tea with wickets in hand, we could really have a crack at the target in the last session. It’s not easy to chase 300 in the last innings especially in India when the ball is turning and a bit of reverse-swing happening. I think we did ok till lunch. Then losing those two wickets in the first two overs after lunch was really the killer blow.”After Dravid’s and Tendulkar’s dismissal, the rest of the Indian batting caved in a shockingly spineless display. Dravid attributed that to “wrong options under pressure”. “Some of the shots we played weren’t up to mark, but when you’re put under pressure that can happen sometimes.”Expectedly, the move to go into the game with five bowlers came in for comment, but Dravid stressed the need to move in that direction, especially if the aim was to start winning outside India. “We feel that going ahead and looking at some of our results in away series, five bowlers is quite important to our combination. You can argue that if we had only four bowlers we might have given more runs in the first innings, or we wouldn’t have been able to bowl as well as we did in the second. We do weigh the pros and cons of six batsmen, but if we want to win a series abroad and if we want to be competitive as a team as England have shown in the Ashes and even here, then we do need five bowlers.”Along with top-order batting, the other area of serious concern for India was their catching: of the 16 chances missed in the game, ten were from Indian fielders, and Dravid admitted that the performance in the field was a let-down. “The situation would have been quite different had we held our catches. We’re working on it. With a few changes in our combinations, some of the fielders in specialist positions have moved out and the boys not fielding in specialist positions have to work on it. We have five batsmen, so all of them should be good catchers; we can’t expect bowlers to be catching in the slips.”The big finds of the series were Munaf Patel, who took 10 wickets at 21.70, and Sreesanth (nine at 25.66). Dravid had a word of praise for them, and also for Anil Kumble and Wasim Jaffer. “Our bowlers – Munaf and Sreesanth – came good for us. They showed good spirit and it’s a good sign for the future. A group of three-four bowlers are bowling with good pace, in good areas, showing good attitude. So that’s one of the pluses in the series. Anil bowled brilliantly and batted well too, while Wasim looked composed as an opener.”Finally, he was all praise for Andrew Flintoff, England’s captain and Man of the Series. “He was phenomenal and truly deserved the Man-of-the-Series award. Every time he went out, he scored runs, was their best bowler on view right through the series and kept coming hard. I think he did a great job as a captain in his first series and he’s truly shown why is the greatest allrounder in the world at the moment.”

The abysmal showing and the humiliating experiences of the Indianteam in England in 1974 brought back hideous memories of the 1936tour. On the field the visitors went down to heavy defeats; offthe field there were numerous seamy incidents making it arguablythe worst tour ever undertaken by an Indian team.Sunil Gavaskar put it all succinctly when he wrote in : “It was a totally disastrous series and the tour wasone of the worst I had made. There was no such thing as teamspirit. Instead there were a lot of petty squabbles that didn’tdo anybody any good. The many incidents that gave the team such abad name didn’t help. It was all extremely frustrating.”And yet when the team landed in England in April, there were noindications that the tour would end in such an unmitigateddisaster. The nucleus of the 1971 side seemed very much intact.The captain was still Ajit Wadekar, the spin quartet was at itpeak and the batting remained strong. Sure, the Indians would betouring in the wetter first half and not in the drier second halfas was the case in 1971. This was one factor reckoned to beagainst the visitors. But not even the most cynical Indiancricket follower could have bargained for what really happened.England won the first Test at Manchester by 113 runs. But the endcame in the 13th of the 20 mandatory overs so it was after a gamefight that India went down. But in the second Test at Lord’s,India touched an all time low. They conceded 629 runs, which wasthe highest England total at the game’s headquarters and thehighest by them against India. On the third day, India repliedwith 302. Following on, the Indian batting touched rock bottom.In just 77 minutes, they were bowled out for 42, their lowestever Test score and the lowest-ever total at Lord’s. The marginof defeat, an innings and 285 runs was the second biggest thatIndia have suffered. From one disaster the Indians stumbled on toanother.In the third Test at Birmingham, India went down by an inningsand 78 runs inside three days and after taking only two wickets.This was only the third time that a team was winning a Test afterlosing only two wickets, the earlier occasions being in 1924 and1958. To cricket fans who had seen their team pull off two greataway triumphs in the West Indies and England in 1971 and thenfollow it up by defeating England at home in 1972-73 it was toomuch to swallow. The batting had crumbled, the fielding hadwilted and the famed spinners had been mastered.As if the heavy defeats were not bad enough, stories of riftsbetween players and factions in the team made the rounds. Therewere also unsavoury incidents concerning the team at a partyhosted by the Indian High Commissioner in London. And around thistime, shiplifting charges were made out against Sudhir Naik.In India, the mood was predictably ugly and there were stories ofWadekar’s house being stoned and the 1971 Victory Bat, erected atIndore to commemorate the triumph three years before, beingdefaced. As it to symbolise the lack of team spirit and thefactionalism, the players came back in batches.Predictably enough, there were very few gains. Gavaskar, GundappaViswanath and Farookh Engineer did reasonably well under thecircumstances. Gavaskar’s 101 in bowler-friendly conditions atOld Trafford is considered to be among his greatest knocks.Generally, however, the batsmen came a cropper against theswinging ball, their technical limitations being exposed. EvenEknath Solkar, the eternal fighter, found it difficult to getruns, averaging less than 20 while Wadekar with 82 runs in sixinnings, was a total failure.The bowling too was a disaster with the spin quartet anything butmenacing. Compared to the 37 wickets that Bishan Bedi, BhagwatChandrasekhar and Sinivas Venkatraghavan took three years before,this time the four of them shared just 15 and at enormous cost.The tour results also showed the team in poor light. Out of 18matches, three were won, four lost and 11 drawn. The team alsolost both the one-day internationals at the end of the tourincidentally the first two such games that India played. Gavaskarlived up to his reputation by getting 993 runs at an average of41.37. Naik, Wadekar, Viswanath and Solkar all topped the 700-runmark. But for younger players like Brijesh Patel and Gopal Bose,the tour was a disaster.Bedi emerged as the leading wicket-taker with 53 but Chandra’stally fell from 50 in 1971 to 26 this time and Venkat’s declinewas even sharper 63 to 18. And all of them including Prasanna,were very expensive. Abid Ali’s all-round showing was a minorsilver lining.Against such weak-kneed opposition, England had a whale of a timein the Tests. Mike Denness got hundreds in successive Tests, JohnEdrich, Dennis Amiss, Keith Fletcher and Tony Greig also hitcenturies, David Lloyd hammered an unbeaten 214 in only hissecond Test and Geoff Arnold (4 for 19) and Chris Old (5 for 21)caused the debacle at Lord’s. The rout was total, complete andabsolute and there could not be any excuses for such a feebleshowing.

After continuous suspense for the last 48 hours the Indian board’s AGM has finally begun in Kolkata. Central minister Sharad Pawar was nominated as candidate for the post of president by the Jammu and Kashmir Cricket Association.All of yesterday, the opposing lobby supporting Pawar had accused the ruling dispensation under Jagmohan Dalmiya and Ranbir Singh Mahendra of trying to scupper the elections. With the leaking of Greg Chappell’s scathing email on Saurav Ganguly sent to the BCCI to a Bengali daily, supposedly close to Dalmiya, another dimension has been added to the snowballing crisis in Indian cricket.But even as the AGM gets underway the Dalmiya-Mahendra faction have filed a petition at the Calcutta High Court seeking its adjournment. Their argument is that the three observers appointed by the court do not have the right to overrule decisions made by the board president at least in the conduct of the AGM.On Thursday, the Kolkata High Court had stayed the AGM which was originally scheduled for 12.30 PM yesterday. Justice Soumitra Sen ruled that a three member panel – comprising former chief justices of India K N Singh and M M Punthi, and retired Supreme Court justice S C Sen — will act as observers and preside over the election process.The AGM did assemble briefly yesterday with one of the observers — Justice S C Sen — in the chair but was later adjourned. The official version is that the meeting has been adjourned and will be held again after the other two observers arrive in town. The opposing lobby has, on the other hand, said that the meeting could only have been “adjourned” if it had been convened in the first place.In his ruling Justice Soumitra Sen has ordered that all disputes regarding eligibility and disqualification of voters for the BCCI elections would be decided by the three-member panel before the election begins. In case of differences in opinion among the observers, the majority decision would be valid, the judge added. According to Justice Sen the entire problem is a result of the absence of specific and clear election rules.Pawar, who had lost a closely-fought election to the present incumbent Ranbir Singh Mahendra last year, has decided to contest again.According to PTI, Farooq Abdullah, president of the JKCA which has nominated Pawar, “A good consensus was worked out 15 days back. It was decided that Mahendra will continue for another year following which Pawar would take over the reigns in 2006. The Dalmiya group initially agreed to it but later went back on its word and said that they wanted Mahendra to be in the post till he completed his three-year tenure.”Earlier, the Madras High Court had dismissed a petition filed by a Chennai-based club thus initally paving the way for the elections to be held today itself.The Tamil Nadu Cricket Association, run by AC Muthiah, who are opposed to the present dispensation run by Dalmiya, had moved the Madras High Court to pre-empt Mahendra from crucially tilting the scales by being both chair and candidate for the AGM. But the Kolkata-based Kalighat Club, affiliated to the Dalmiya-led Cricket Association of Bengal moved the Calcutta High Court and got it to appoint an observer of its own.