Islamabad, Nov 7: The PCB is set to appoint former Pakistan Test cricketer Ijaz Ahmed as the new fielding coach of the national team ahead of the home series against India.

Ijaz, who is working as the National Cricket Academy (NCA) fielding coach, would be elevated as the national fielding coach well before the important series against India starting in January 2009, The News quoted a well placed PCB source as saying.

Nagpur, Nov 7: Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) gave farewell honours to four cricket greats of the country.

Leg spinner Anil Kumble quit as skipper this week while former skipper and batsman Saurav Ganguly will hang up his boots at the end of the ongoing fourth Test against Australia.

The BCCI felicitated Sachin Tendulkar and V. V. S. Laxman for their milestones of becoming highest run getter in Test cricket and for having completed playing of 100 Tests respectively.

The BCCI felicitated them at a function in Nagpur on Thursday.

Mumbai, Nov 6 : England cricket team arrived in Mumbai on Thursday for the seven-match one-day series against India.

England will be playing their first one-day match in Rajkot on November 14 and is also scheduled to play two tests in Ahmedabad and Mumbai in December.

Indian selectors named a 15-man squad for the matches at Rajkot, Indore (November 17) and Kanpur (November 20) with Murali Vijay the only new face whereas ace batsman Sachin Tendulkar has been rested for the first three matches.

Lahore, Nov 6: Perhaps under ICC pressure against a proposal to appoint former Pakistan Test captain Salim Malik as the head coach of the National Cricket Academy (NCA), the PCB last evening said that it never appointed or offered to appoint him as the coach.

Malik, who had a life ban for alleged involvement in match-fixing overturned last month, had said on Tuesday that he had accepted an offer from the PCB to become head coach at the NCA.

Wellington, Nov 6: New Zealand captain Daniel Vettori believes that Australia is the best cricket side in the world despite struggling against Indian in the ongoing Test series.

Vettori rated the Aussies team as the biggest challenge in world cricket, and said Australia remained the topside in the world, “particularly in their own conditions”.

New Zealand is preparing to head across the Tasman next week for a four-day warm-up match against New South Wales in Sydney before tests in Brisbane and Adelaide.

Chandigarh, Nov. 5 : Cricketers associated with the rebel Indian Cricket League (ICL) showcased their ramp and modelling talent in Chandigarh, they were second to none.

The occasion was the launch event of a new high-resolution video and hi-fi music section of santabanta. com, the Chandigarh-based popular entertainment portal.

The cricketers launched a new brighter, smarter and niftier version of its website. The latest version, called the SantaBanta. com V-2.0 Version, offers new varied sections with better and more attractive contents to its users.