Getting the taste of serious competition is what every budding sportspersons would long for, but hitting the right cord there are few. And among them is Ali Zoran Khan, the opening batsman of the Vidarbha Cricket Association (VCA).

After remaining unbeaten in his maiden appearance in serious contest, left-handed Ali slammed 112 of just 90 deliveries as he propelled his team into the quarterfinals of the under-13 Cadence Cricket tournament, at the Cadence Cricket Academy's ground, Mundhawa here on Monday.

After putting on 98 runs for the first wicket Khan along with Rohan Sharma, saw their team pile on 233 in the 30-over encounter against LIC Vengsarkar Academy, Mumbai. The latter could not match the score as they were bundled out for 108 with eight overs to spare.

It's not an attempt to promote night galli cricket, but Kapil Dev and former South African skipper Clive Rice see business sense in lighting up Indian streets. Kapil and Rice, in their second innings, will do business.

Rice heads a South African company called Envirolight that markets street lights manufactured by its parent company, Metair Limited, while Dev runs a sports lighting company called Dev Musco which will market these streetlights under a separate entity called Berget Buildcon Pvt Ltd.

"Kapil and I think alike and it would be foolish not to work with him, especially being in related businesses. After having seen over the years how competitive he is, I would much rather be on his side of the fence," said Rice.

Rajasthan Cricket Association (RCA) president Lalit Modi formally announced his candidature for RCA presidentship on Monday and pulled up his socks for the "fair and square battle".

"We want that the government interference should not affect the RCA elections. It should be a fair and square battle," Modi said challenging his detractors. Modi along with the Kota district cricket association secretary Anim Pathan, who has filed nomination for the post of secretary, submitted 41 forms on behalf of his faction to fight on all the 21 posts of RCA.

Hitting a century break is difficult for most cueists, but Pankaj Advani showed why he is the king of the green baize as he recorded two century breaks of 135 and 107 at the CCI Platinum Jubilee Open here on Monday.

Advani beat Mayur Sanghvi 135 (135)-0 56-39 86(66)-0 107(107)-0. He missed out on the highest possible break, though, without the benefit of an opponents’ foul of 147, which would have made him richer by Rs 1,47,000.

Advani did allow Sanghvi some playing time in the second frame but that was all that he was going to give his opponent.

But was he looking for the break of 147? “I did hear someone from the crowd shout that there was prize money on it, but there were just not enough points on the table. I’d have loved to get it though,” said Advani.

Karachi, Feb. 24: The lack-luster performance by the Pakistani bowlers in the on-going Test match against Sri Lanka has irked former speedster Waqar Younis.

Younis has termed the present Pakistani pace attack as `inexperienced'.

"Our fast bowlers are too inexperienced. I mean our three fast bowlers have a total of 20 or 25 Tests combined. Only Umar Gul has some Test experience while Sohail Khan is a debutant, and Yasir Arafat has played just one Test," The News quoted Younis, as saying.

Auckland (New Zealand), Feb. 23 : New Zealand Cricket's chief selector Glenn Turner seemingly has no regard for reputations and his perform-or-else attitude has now seen 28 players tried since October.

That''s almost half of all the first-class players in New Zealand when you remove from the picture the odd overseas import and all the South Africans ineligible until they met residency criteria.

Turner, whose fellow selectors are John Wright and Dion Nash, said he was comfortable rewarding standout performers in domestic competition.