* Zaheer Khan named in Baroda team for Ranji final

Left arm tearaway Zaheer Khan has replaced Shekhar Joshi in the Baroda squad for the Ranji Trophy finals against Railways at the Gujarat State Fertilizer Corporation ground in Baroda from April 19 to 23.

Zaheer's commitments with the Indian team curtailed his appearances for Baroda in the national competition this season. In two matches in the West Zone league, against Mumbai and Gujarat, he scalped ten wickets at 20.8.

Chairman of the Baroda Cricket Association's selection committee, Anshuman Gaekwad told PTI on Monday that the final eleven would be announced only on the morning of the match.

The team: Jacob Martin (captain), Connor Williams, Tushar Arothe, Nayan Mongia (wicket keeper), Satyajit Parab, Himanshu Jadhav, Rakesh Patel, Ajit Bhoite, Valmik Buch, Zaheer Khan, Irfan Pathan (sr), Irfan Pathan (jr), Umang Patel, Rohit Chandorkar and Milap Mewada.

* Borde rebuts Bedi's comments

Chairman of Selectors, Chandu Borde has issued a strong rejoinder to his former India colleague Bishen Bedi's reported remarks questioning whether he (Borde) ever congratulated the Indian team for their victory in the Test series over Australia.

"Bedi's comments, in a section of the press, were unwarranted as I and my selector colleagues went to the Indians' dressing room and congratulated the boys after their 2-1 win at Chennai and I am sure hundreds of TV viewers too will have seen it", Borde told PTI in a telephonic conversation from Pune.

Bedi in an interview to an Mumbai based paper asked "has Chandu Borde said well done to the boys or did anybody hear him congratulate the team after the Test series win against the Aussies", according to PTI.

"I don't like to show my emotions in public as I am basically a shy person and I don't indulge in that kind of publicity", he added. "It hurts all the more because Bedi has played under me and I have done whatever I could as a senior and I really do not know what he has got against me as this is not the first time he has passed a nasty comment against me and I am sure this will not be the last time as well", Borde added.

* NCA gives green signal to four more zonal academies

The National Cricket Academy Committee cleared the decks for the setting up of four more zonal academies at their meeting in Mumbai on Monday. The Vidarbha, Punjab and Maharashtra Cricket Associations, besides the Cricket Club of India in Mumbai, will run these academies for trainees in the Under-14 and Under-16 age groups.

Former Board President and Chairman of the NCA Committee, Raj Singh Dungarpur, told PTI that the CCI will select 20 trainees from around the country and utilise their own (club) funds, while the other three associations would select boys from their respective zones and get a 50% subsidy from the board.

"The BCCI has also agreed to start a National Cricket Museum which will chronicle the milestones of Indian cricket from 1940s to 2001 called 'From C K Nayudu to Sachin Tendulkar' over 8,500 square feet of built-up space next to the BCCI office at the Brabourne Stadium" added Dungarpur.

The five zonal academies already sanctioned are based at Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Delhi and Kanpur. They were scheduled to begin their sessions from April 20 but Dungarpur revealed that the launch date has now been postponed to May 1, after the completion of annual examinations all over the country.

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