Introducing Yousuf Junior

Md Yousuf brought along his eight-year-old son Daniel to the nets session at Eden Gardens...

Md Yousuf brought along his eight-year-old son Daniel to the nets session at Eden Gardens, and he couldn8217;t have timed it better. A timely insertion, perhaps because too many players in the Pak squad are in the sick bay. Not that this crisis did in any way affect Yousuf junior, who went about playing with the big boys, posing for the shutterbugs and having a ball. If not manpower addition, there surely was an addition as far as positivity goes.

Where is Azhar8217;s invite?

Trust the Cricket Association of Bengal CAB to come up with something like this. It8217;s been a week now that the organisers announced with aplomb that Md Azharuddin was one of the high-profile invitees for the Test match. They had egg on their faces this evening when the news came from Hyderabad that Azhar still hasn8217;t received any copy of the invitation. The CAB quickly went into damage control mode, rushing a fresh invite to Azharuddin.

Short sightscreen

For the first time at Eden Gardens, organisers were taken by surprise when the ICC umpires for the Test match informed them that the pavilion end BC Roy Club House End sightscreen was far too short by international standards. The CAB has been asked to raise the height of the sightscreen to the minimum height of 18 feet, as per the ICC8217;s specifications. The problem is, such a move could obstruct view from the VIP gallery.

Jhulan drops in

The world8217;s fastest woman bowler, Jhulan Goswami made a breezy appearance at the Eden Gardens while the Indian and Pakistani players were slogging it out at the nets. Not Sourav Ganguly, Jhulan said that she dropped in to meet her old pal MS Dhoni. A quick 5-minute chat later, she left, even as the media almost pounced on her.

Hawk-Eye is on, finally

The three-day battle between Nimbus Communications and the CAB over setting up Hawk-Eye now called Virtual Eye finally came to a peaceful end today. For three days, the CAB had refused to allow Nimbus to set up special towers for putting up the high-end cameras, citing crowd obstructions. Finally, upon learning that the software is indispensable for the match8217;s broadcast and is also used by the match officials, the CAB gave in and gave Nimbus the permit to set up the cameras the way they wanted.