It was a story of leaders showing their men the way on the opening day of the Champions League T20 qualifiers here on Tuesday. Shikhar Dhawan helped see the Sunrisers Hyderabad home in a testing chase after Kandurata Maroons skipper Lahiru Thirimanne too had sparkled with the bat.

It is tempting to label the Champions League T20 qualifiers here as a three-horse race between the Asian teams, for very obvious reasons. Familiarity with conditions can often be a decisive factor in cricket — even in a rough-and-tumble, super-abbreviated format like 40-over cricket.

Life has given Shikhar Dhawan a few knocks, but having come through that phase, he in now sailing calmer waters. An eye-popping Test debut, a richly-successful return to the one-day squad, matrimony and now, captaincy of his IPL franchise, the Sunrisers Hyderabad, ahead of the Champions League T20 qualifiers, that get under way here on Tuesday.

After much toing and froing, including reports on Thursday that the Faislabad Wolves, Pakistan’s domestic Twenty20 champions, had been denied visas for the qualifying round of the 2013 Champions League, the decks were cleared on Friday for Misbah-ul Haq’s team to play in India.

Unabashed and unbowed, maverick cricket administrator Lalit Modi has hit back at the Board of Control for Cricket in India and its disciplinary committee, saying he had been framed for financial irregularities while running the Indian Premier League.

India looks condemned to an extended stay in the Olympic twilight zone thanks to the intransigence of its sports administrators.

Maverick cricket administrator Lalit Modi, currently in self-exile in the United Kingdom, is likely to be hit with a life ban after being found guilty of rigging bids in favour of two franchisees in t

One of Indian cricket’s most respected voices on Monday summed up the mood of despair and disappointment in the wake of the spot-fixing and conflict of interest scandals that erupted following IPL-6, and sought the restoration of the game’s image in the eyes of the Indian fan.

Tuesday’s Bombay High Court order dismissing as “illegal” a report prepared by the cricket control board’s two-member commission notwithstanding, sidelined BCCI president N. Srinivasan’ has said he will attend a scheduled meeting here on Friday.

The Board of Control for Cricket in India has turned into a forum where only a few voices are heard, former Board president and Punjab Cricket Association chief Inderjit Singh Bindra said on Tuesday.