Due to a limited role offered in PCB, former test captain Javed Miandad quit as director general of the Pakistan Cricket Board on Wednesday.

Miandad informed, "I have tendered my resignation to the chairman PCB because I was only confined to look after affairs of domestic cricket and was never consulted in other cricketing affairs."

Back in November, Miandad was appointed by incoming PCB Chairman Ijaz Butt.

On Tuesday in the ninth round at Wijk aan Zee, Abhijeet Gupta defeated Ukrainian tailender Oleg Romanishin and maintained an impressive finish in Group 'C'.

With this win, obtained with total of 48 moves with white, Abhijeet's tally has risen to 5.5 points and now he has come to the third place in the 14-player field.

Following this, he claimed a central pawn on the 32nd move and pressed home the advantage with a well-placed bishop and an active rook, Abhijeet finally called the shots.

The superstar bubbly actress of bollywood, Preity Zinta, who also happens to own Kings XI Punjab of the Indian Premier League (IPL), is planning to give a chance to promising cricketers at the grass-root level.

A cricket seminar and a T-20 tournament would be held by her team in Chandigarh and Mohali where teams from Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir will participate.

Priety informed, "My aim is to promote cricket at the grass-root level and to nurture new talent. I also want everyone involved to have fun."

The latest buzz is that pacer Stuart Broad has denied joining the growing list of England cricketers seeking lucrative Indian Premier League deals. The reason behind the decision is Broad's desire to put his energies on international assignments like the Ashes.

While revealing Broad's decision to opt out, England team's managing director Hugh Morris said, "It's a good opportunity for players but it's a good opportunity for us. We've got a very important summer ahead of us with the Twenty20 and the Ashes and this is a decision Stuart has made and we must respect that."

On Tuesday, at Melbourne Park, Mahesh Bhupathi and his Bahamian partner Mark Knowles were successful into reaching the Australian Open doubles semi-finals as they presented Feliciano Lopez and Fernando Verdasco a strong defeat.

A total of 88 minutes were taken by the third seeded Indo-Bahamian pair to defeat the Spanish duo 6-1, 2-6, 6-4 in their quarter-final clash.

Bhupati-Knowles were able to sail to the next level, even when Lopez-Verdasco showed some resistance in the second set, winning it 6-2.

Paris  - The Formula One Race Director of motorsport's controlling body FIA on Tuesday announced that the new season would see a change in the safety car phase.

In an interview published on the FIA website Charlie Whiting admitted that the rule introduced in 2007 was a bad one and that as a result his organization had gone back to the 2006 regulations.

"The only difference is we intend to implement a minimum time back to the pits. When we deploy the safety car, the message will go to all the cars, which will then have a safety car" mode on their electronic control unit.