Uthappa,Vinay nominated Mumbai: Royal Challengers Bangalore's Robin Uthappa and Chennai opener Murali Vijay have been nominated in two categories for the IPL Awards to be held in Mumbai on Friday. Uthappa and Vijay have been shortlisted for the awards in the best batsman and most dramatic performance categories. Jacques Kallis,Sachin Tendulkar and Chennai's Suresh Raina are the three others in the running to lift the best batsman award as per the list of nominees. Seven players are in the fray to be named the best bowler of the T20 tournament. The list includes spinners R Ashwin of Chennai Super Kings and Pragyan Ojha of Deccan Chargers,who are part of the T20 team to the West Indies. The jury consisted of Lalit Modi (chairman),Sunil Gavaskar,Brian Lara,Javagal Srinath,Simon Taufel and Harsha Bhogle. PCA unhappy over players call London: The Professional Cricketers Association is investigating claims that players were left to take the decision to go ahead with IPL match between Bangalore and Mumbai following two low-intensity bomb blasts. The immediate worry for us,and I have heard this direct from one of the players,is that after the initial explosion and a sweep of the stadium,the decision that the game should go ahead was taken by the players, Smith said. From what I have been told,the Indian guys said very quickly that they felt unfazed. But the foreign guys then felt under pressure to agree with their colleagues. The idea that you can determine whether conditions are safe by a referendum of the players is outrageous, The Daily Telegraph quoted Ian Smith,the PCAs legal adviser,as saying. Betting charges a big blot New Delhi: Adam Gilchrist on Monday said if the alleged match fixing and betting charges in the IPL are proved,it would be a big blot. "Nothing is proven yet,but of course if there is (match fixing and betting). it will take lot of things away from the tournament. If it's there in IPL,I will be extremely disappointed," Gilchrist said. "It would be a blot on the event. All what could be done at the moment is look at the face value,nothing is proven. If it's going on,get to the bottom of it. Come out with a clean slate. I will encourage everyone to support in the investigations," he told a television channel. BCCI waiting ICC nod Mumbai: The BCCI is waiting for advice from ICC for the Indian team's travel to West Indies for Twenty20 World Cup on the scheduled date of April 27 in the wake of shut down of airspace in Europe due to volcanic ash from Iceland. The ICC makes the travel plans for the tournament (Twenty20 World Cup). The team is scheduled to travel to London enroute to the West Indies. But with the flights all over Europe being affected we are awaiting word from ICC. They have told us they would intimate us in a day or two, BCCI CAO Ratnakar Shetty said. Never played as a team: Gambhir New Delhi: Lashing out at his players for their inconsistent show after being knocked out of IPL,Delhi Daredevils skipper Gautam Gambhir said they did not play as a team in the entire tournament. We restricted them to 145. Considering their line up it was good effort. We should have chased it. We should have batted sensibly, Gambhir said. We did not play as a team. and never chased convincingly in the entire tournament. We were in positions to chase convincingly but we were not consistent. If we lose four out of five matches we do not deserve to be in semifinals," he said. Bowlers need to be consistent New Delhi: The clinical bowling performance against Delhi Daredevils notwithstanding,Deccan Chargers all-rounder Ryan Harris feels his side's bowlers have to be more consistent if they want to defend their IPL title. "I think,bowling is the area where we can still improve. We have to put up better performance in the last few overs of the innings which is always crucial in a Twenty20 game," said Harris. We have batted well in the last two matches. Our team have a strong batting line-up and I am confident that it will perform in the coming matches as well, he said.
