Though not quite in the league of the legendary Tendulkar-Kambli school partnership, two junior cricketers from Delhi made sure they grabbed headlines when they added 349 for the second wicket in an Under-16 match. The LB Shastri club batsmen Nitish Rana and Siddharth Sehwag hit 185 and 134 respectively in the Delhi & District Cricket Association tournament on Monday.

Rana’s innings consumed 226 balls and included 24 fours, while Sehwag faced 215 balls and hit 23 fours to beat Malik Sports on the basis of a first-innings lead. Rana, 15, was joined at the crease by Sehwag, 14, on the second ball of their side’s innings and forged a mammoth partnership.

"We eat from the same plate … we understand each other enough," Sehwag, the Delhi Under-16 captain, told the Hindustan Times. “We like to bat together.”

Their stand was broken by an act of sportsmanship, something rarely seen by international players. Rana looked set for a double century but walked on 195, even after the umpire ruled him not out. "I knew I was out and I did not want to score a double-century with the feeling that I was out," he said.

Irfan Pathan may have receded to the fringes of Indian cricket but if he’s moping about missing out on the Champions Trophy, his mood has just got better: His brother Yusuf, who has made the trip to South Africa, gave him a Ford SUV for the Eid festival. A report in the Indian Express said their father gave Irfan the car keys on Monday morning, after the traditional prayers. Irfan’s star has dimmed since he first burst on the scene in 2004 but Yusuf has been publicly championing his brother’s cause. In July, shortly after the initial squad for the Champions Trophy was announced, Yusuf offered this sharp comment on Irfan’s exclusion: “Irfan's performance was always up to the mark. He has not been left out because of his performance. Everybody has seen what is happening.” Irfan, who will play in the Irani Cup next week, is slowly returning to centre-stage – maybe the SUV will make that a smoother journey!

Imagine not taking the call, when Sachin Tendulkar is on the other end of the line. Well, you could afford to do it, if you happened to be Arjun Tendulkar. Papa Tendulkar recently spoke about how he was troubled by his son's refusal to come on the phone when he went away on tour. "It was tough initially because my son didn't like it when I left home," Tendulkar told a TV channel. "For the first five-six years of his life, he wouldn't speak to me on the phone. That was difficult for me." Happily, young Arjun eventually appreciated just what his father was doing on tour - and what it meant to cricket at large. So much so that he's now started playing cricket too, which Tendulkar says was of his own choosing.

	Sachin Tendulkar: The elephant in the room that no one wants to talk about © AFP

Sachin Tendulkar doesn’t get criticised much, and almost never in India. So when Sanjay Manjrekar called him “the elephant in the room that no one wants to talk about” in February 2008, after a string of poor performances in ODIs, people took notice - and not a few hurled back brickbats on their idol's behalf. Manjrekar, though, remained unfazed and on Thursday he reiterated - not once, but twice - that he stood by that opinion in that context. Asked first at a press meet whether he would revise that opinion, Manjrekar didn't budge. "I stand by the comment I made at that phase. He is a great player but he is also a human being. I have seen him from close since he was 14 and I could see he was afraid of failure and getting out." He added, though, that that seemed to have disappeared and he was playing with more freedom." For good measure, he repeated the sentiment in a TV interview the same evening - before presumably being smuggled out the back door to avoid irate Tendulkar fans.

Sourav Ganguly is the Prince of Kolkata but he could be looking elsewhere for a way to become the Badshah of the BCCI. A report in Hindustan Times suggests that Ganguly is looking at the eastern state of Tripura as a means of getting nominated to the national cricket board, the first necessary step to being elected BCCI president. The rotating presidency comes to the East Zone – to which Tripura and Bengal are both affiliated – in 2014, and Ganguly needs to put in some time on the national board before that. He already holds a post with the Cricket Association of Bengal – as chairman of its development committee – but is unlikely to get a nomination from the relatively high-profile state. And, as the report mentions, Tripura is on better terms with the current BCCI establishment than is Jagmohan Dalmiya, the confrontationist, controversial Bengal chief.

Meanwhile, the Tripura Cricket Association (TCA) has reacted strongly to the speculation. "There is not even a fraction of truth in this...it's purely baseless and without any logic," TCA secretary Arindam Ganguly told PTI. "I will represent our association in the BCCI AGM. I don't understand why everybody is speculating about Sourav."

Ganguly the captain never set much store by parochialism – looks like he’s in the same groove as an administrator. Which leaves just one question – whatever will Kolkata do without its Prince?

As if the Fake IPL Player didn't do enough damage to the image and sense of well-being among India's elite cricketers, now comes news of "fake" Twitter accounts that claim to be voicing similar thoughts in the first person. And not just any old person: MS Dhoni, Sachin Tendulkar, Yuvraj Singh, Virender Sehwag, Rahul Dravid, Sourav Ganguly, Harbhajan Singh and Gautam Gambhir.

The "views" expressed are far removed from the anodyne comments usually trotted out by the stars. In one tweet, Dhoni - or his alter ego - regrets the unfulfilled potential of Vinod Kambli, saying he could have been as great as Tendulkar or Lara.

Yet even pseudo-Dhoni - the real man's brother Narendra has officially denied any family link with the Twitterer - seemed to have got cold feet for within hours there was another tweet reaffirming that Tendulkar was indeed the greatest batsman ever. How predictable...Bring back the Fake IPL Player, we say!

Roses and candle-light dinners are passe; here's the latest way to woo your fiancee - get your photograph clicked with Indian captain MS Dhoni. Ravindra Singh Saini, a 23-year-old, die-hard fan of Dhoni did just that, and it's wedding bells for him now.

Saini's parents had fixed his marriage with a girl from Himachal Pradesh, in an attempt to quell his craze for Dhoni and cricket. But a locket with Dhoni's picture around Saini's neck annoyed his fiancee, who issued an ultimatum: "Meet Dhoni, get a photograph clicked with him and then come for marriage."

And then there was no stopping Saini. He sold off his small shop of CDs and cassettes in his home town for Rs 15,000, left home and arrived in Ranchi on July 23. He set up camp at a hotel, tried to gather every possible detail about Dhoni and his friends, and visited one of the captain's contacts every day hoping his dream would be fulfilled. But as luck would have it, his money soon ran out and it was time for him to head back. But then a glimmer of hope - news that Dhoni could soon be home. Saini decided to give himself a couple of days, going hungry and even sleeping on the pavement.

And in the end his love triumphed. When Dhoni heard about the story he didn't waste any time in getting ready for the shoot. The light of the flashbulbs then captured Saini's dream: the photo that would hopefully capture his fiancee's heart.

How much would you pay to be coached by Sachin Tendulkar for a day? Hopefully quite a bit since it will all go to charity for underprivileged children. “I will spend time with the guy who auctions generously, I don't want kanjoos [miserly] people,” Tendulkar told Daily News & Analysis. But Tendulkar said bids would be measured by the passion with which people gave and not just the amount. The idea to organise the charity event, Tendulkar said, came after his daughter Sara decided to spend her last birthday organising a fair for underprivileged children in a Mumbai suburb. “She felt good and I was extremely proud of her,” Tendulkar said. “What goes on in-between those ears in that small head is what matters, and I know she's on the right track.” Time to dig in to your pockets to learn how to mess with Shane Warne’s mind.

MS Dhoni may be on more television ads than Sachin Tendulkar these days but it hasn’t quite made him the most recognised face in the country. Film director Ram Gopal Varma, known for his Indian mafia and horror movies, failed to recognise Dhoni when the Indian captain walked up to greet him at Bangalore airport. Though Varma denies reports that he mistook Dhoni for a wannabe actor and asked him to drop off his photographs at his office, he did confirm he did not know who it was. “Yes, it’s true,” Varma was quoted as saying in the Times of India. “I’m hopelessly ignorant about cricket. Only after he left, the people with me told me that he’s Dhoni. I'd like to apologise to him the next time I meet him.”

Sourav Ganguly, also known as the-one-who-really-wound-up-the-Aussies, has disappointed fans of mental disintegration by revealing that he arrived late for a toss with Steve Waugh during the epic 2001-02 series merely because he had left his blazer behind.

"There is a tradition that both team captains have to sport the team blazer while going for the toss,” Ganguly said on a television show. “On that particular day, I did not get my blazer and it took time to get hold of it. That was the reason for the delay.”

Waugh had criticised Ganguly for repeatedly turning up late for the toss during the Tests and one-day series. Ganguly had said at the time that there was a lot to do in the mornings. “... knocking up, talking to the selectors, that I may have been late by a few minutes."

The economic recession is finally having an effect on Indian cricket. No, next year’s IPL is not being cancelled but the salaries of players employed by Air India, the national carrier, are not going to be paid on time. The airline announced wage cuts for its employees earlier this week and this will affect the salaries of international players like MS Dhoni, Suresh Raina, VVS Laxman, Yuvraj Singh, RP Singh, Sreesanth and the women’s captain Jhulan Goswami. “Frankly, we are still not clear on the status but yes, the salary has been deferred by a fortnight,” Shekhar Guha, the head of Air India’s Sports Promotion Board, said. So... tough times loom for Indian cricketers.

The recession spares no one. That’s what three of India’s rising young players learnt ... the hard way.

On Wednesday evening, Saurashtra batsman Cheteshwar Pujara, Mumbai spinner Iqbal Abdulla and Gujarat batsman Bhavik Thaker were going to the airport after their West Zone team won the Deodhar Trophy tournament. But euphoria soon turned to fear as their car was blocked and stopped by two men on a motorcycle on the Cuttack-Bhubaneshwar highway. One of the men got into the car and started driving while the players were still in the car. The players feared the worst, but the situation turned out to be slightly different.

Pressed for answers, the men said they were recovery agents repossessing the car because the owner had turned defaulter. Sensing a glimmer of hope, the players hastily explained that they had nothing to do with the owner of the vehicle, and were in fact unsuspecting cricketers caught in a mess that wasn’t of their making. Following a 15-minute discussion, the men finally relented and dropped the players, with bag and baggage, on the highway. Another car was summoned from the Orissa Cricket Association and the players reached the airport, without further incident.

Th end result? A blacklisted travel agent and a dose of ‘economic’ reality for three young Indian aspirants.

A report in the Wisden Cricketer magazine says that India’s coaches are becoming increasingly worried by parents buying their children cheap but heavy bats because they last longer. The net result is that children are using equipment too big and weighty for them, with the result that they are suffering injuries and acquiring dodgy techniques.

“If [a parent] buys a bat he knows the boy is going to grow taller, so he buys a bat that is at least one size bigger than what suits him,” said coach Sandeep Dahyad.

With bats made from English willow lighter but more expensive than their Kashmiri counterparts, it is the latter which many go for because of price and durability.

The report also quotes Dr Rene Ferninands, a Australian bio-mechanist, who said that the heavy bats cause serious technical problems as the children “don’t have the top-arm strength to hit the ball … hence they lift with the bottom hand and find it difficult to play straight. And what about the cut and the pull shots? What happens to them?”

	Tendulkar has sat with the world famous museum who took over 200 measurements © Madame Tussauds

Sachin Tendulkar will never be forgotten, not by a generation of Indians and certainly not by cricket. But if anyone wants to find out just how diminutive the “little master” really is, they can come face to face with him at Madame Tussauds who are to spend £150,000 ($USD 215,000) on creating his waxwork.

Tendulkar, famously modest and private in spite of his achievements, might have discovered the perfect solution in combating his insatiably adoring fans. Tussauds’ waxworks are world renowned for their lifelike realism, and Tendulkar becomes the third cricketer after Brian Lara and Shane Warne to be converted into a wax statue.

“We are delighted to confirm our next sporting superstar is going to be Sachin Tendulkar; his achievements on the cricket pitch are phenomenal and he is one of the biggest names in international sport,” said the museum on Friday.

Tendulkar has already had a seating with the museum, in London, where they took 200 precise measurements of his face and body, giving his fans further reason to wax lyrical over his genius. The wax figure is expected to take three months to complete.

In India, cricket and films are often the quickest way to arrive in life. Having watched the Oscar-winning Slumdog Millionaire, where a poverty-stricken teenager makes it big, Allan Border thinks it’s possible for underprivileged kids to improve their lives through cricket. In Mumbai, coaching children rescued through an anti-child labour campaign, Border said he’d like to see a “Slumdog cricketer” come through the ranks.

“We understand the kids we work with in Mumbai have had a very tough upbringing,” Border told the Daily News & Analysis. “So we want to bring some fun back into their lives and have some fun doing it as well.

"When you come as a cricketer you stay in five-star hotels and get looked after incredibly well and play at great stadiums. On those trips you don't see the real India but through these programmes you get to see the real India or a different side of India. It's different from where we come from.”

As a result, Border said he had a "great appreciation for the story line”. Here’s hoping real life emulates the reel life.

Batsmen alert: He may look like he’s after your blood but he really isn’t and he may look beastly in his run-up but he’s really a beauty. And while cricket fans make up their mind whether they like Sreesanth or not, veggie lovers voted him the Sexiest Indian Vegetarian Alive, along with Bollywood actress Kareena Kapoor, in PETA India’s annual online poll.

The website describes him thus: “as easy on the eyes as he is hard on his opponents. “A young and exuberant player who has got the moves on the pitch and on the dance floor, it's no wonder that 'The Prince of hat-tricks' has been crowned our king of veggie Valentinos!” With his new buffed-up look, it won’t be long before Sreesanth leads the Indian version of the Men of Cricket calendar.

When he retired from the game, many thought Sourav Ganguly’s next avatar would be as a TV commentator. He will be on TV this June but not as a commentator – he will be the host of a reality TV show called ‘Dadagiri’, according to a report in the Kolkata daily Anandabazar Patrika. The show’s name (loosely translated as bullying or bravado) is a pun on Ganguly’s nickname from his playing days; that’s one of the few “facts” known at this stage. “So far I know, I have to conduct a quiz show," the paper quoted Ganguly as saying, before adding that there would be other elements to it. It does cut a broad swathe, though; the “theme” is to restore Bengal’s glory, the sub-theme is to perform “dadagiri” in front of “Dada” (a third may be to spot the link between the two). There’s no singing or dancing but there will be chats (the perennial Bengali pastime of adda) with fellow celebrities - and, budget and ratings permitting, a trip to Lahore to interview Imran Khan. The report says the initial run will be 52 episodes; the commentary box can wait.

	No language issues here © Getty Images

Mahendra Singh Dhoni is surely not of the ilk to be flustered easily, nor the kind to shy away from a challenge, and the India captain seems to have found an ingenious way to handle a few language issues.

"In countries like Australia or England, people speak English in such an accent that it is very hard to understand. So, at parties when locals come to us and start talking, even if we are not getting anything, we say yeah,” Dhoni joked during a show on NDTV. "Or if I have a drink in hand, I excuse myself by saying, 'I'll just get a drink' but never show up in front of that person again.”

The expectations were also high when he was signed for US$1.5 million by the Chennai Super Kings. "I played for Chennai but didn't know any Tamil [what most people would speak in Chennai]. But people there thought that since I was part of the team, I had learnt it. So I just picked up a few words and for the one-and-a-half months I played there, I relied on those to break the language barrier.”

Greg Chappell didn't make too many friends during his rough tenure as India's coach. And he definitely didn't impress Virender Sehwag, who has said he lost trust for the Australian legend.

"The thing with him was that whatever you shared with him, it was promptly disclosed to media and selectors," Sehwag told PTI. "He talked and that hurt the trust. I wasn't comfortable with him."

Neither was Sehwag pleased with the psychologist Rudi Webster, whom Chappell employed for sessions with the players. "I never went alone to Webster. In a session with Webster, we all had our chunk of time," said Sehwag. "I am one who believes that if you open up your thoughts to someone you trust, you feel lighter and thus better. But I found out that Webster couldn't keep things confidential."

According to Sehwag, the current coach Gary Kirsten was the "best" he had seen. "He doesn't force things on you," said Sehwag. "His basic premise is: you all are international cricketers and you know how to succeed and how important it is to succeed. So I won't thrust myself on you. But whenever you need me, for practice, throwing balls, sharing ideas, worries, I am always there."

Mumbai Cricket Association (MCA) president Sharad Pawar will award Rs 60 lakh to the Mumbai team which won the Ranji Trophy, an amount equal to the winner's purse. He met all the team members at the MCA office ahead of the special AGM on Saturday.

“Mumbai dominated the games right through the season, except for a one-off bad game against Saurashtra at Rajkot,” said Dilip Vengsarkar, former chairman of the Mumbai selection committee and vice-president of the MCA.

The double-sided bat used by New South Wales batsman David Warner in a domestic match against South Australia was not the first experiment with such an innovation. Double-sided bats were trialled in India in 1982 to enable batsmen to play unconventional shots as forcefully as possible. The bat, first made in Meerut, was compressed from both sides, while its handle was built thin to provide balance.

“There was a lot of demand for special bats even later for Sixes tournaments. There was a craze for six-a-side tournaments held in Hong Kong, Singapore and Bangkok, and we made the bat specifically for those tournaments,” Rakesh Mahajan, the owner of bat-maker BDM told the Indian Express. “Before going for mass production, we gave away bats to players for practice. In fact, during the Singapore tournament, players like Kapil Dev, Arjuna Ranatunga, Joel Garner, Rumesh Ratnayake used those bats at the nets.”

However, the bats fell out of favour with players. “It wasn’t liked by players because they wanted something more conventional. There was very little scope for experimentation back then.

“These bats have one major drawback — there’s no meat on them. It’s good for players who prefer to time the ball, but this version of cricket [Twenty20] is all about force. In fact, these days players come to us with the demand of increasing the meat on the bat to 15 inches - which is not easy because the imported willow doesn’t have that much width.”

Sachin Tendulkar, though not worried about the survival of Test cricket in the wake of Twenty20 and ODIs, has said the declining attendance for Tests in India is an area of concern. “Test cricket has its own place. There is no threat to Test cricket from IPL or T20 World Cup or even 50-over matches. But I am only concerned about the falling attendance for Test matches in India,” he said.

However, he had a potential solution for the problem. "I have a suggestion for the BCCI. Whenever Test cricket is played, local school and college students should be allowed free entry on weekends so that 10 years down the line these children will become lovers of Test cricket,” Tendulkar said. "I remember when I was a 10-year old, I went to the Wankhede stadium and watched the West Indies in action. I still remember Michael Holding's bowling in that match."

Mahendra Singh Dhoni has been provided with extra security after reportedly receiving an extortion letter demanding Rs50 lakh (US$ 103,091). News reports say his security has been upgraded to ‘Z’ category – the highest level in India - and he has a 45-strong team protecting him. Police officials said Dhoni's family received the extortion letter on Monday. Earlier this month, Dhoni travelled unescorted to the Ranchi airport after seemingly being unsatisfied with the level of security given to him. He also applied for a licence for a .9mm pistol.