How times have changed

“The BCCI members had resolved in a working committee meeting recently that they were not happy with the Twenty20 version and will not play it.” This was Board of Control for Cricket in India president Sharad Pawar’s stance three years ago, when the Indian team’s participation in the inaugural edition of the World Twenty20 championship itself was in doubt.

Back then, the bigwigs in the board considered the format a bit of a joke. England might have needed T20 to “bring crowds back to the grounds” but India did not, was the general theme (and anyway, they whispered, the fast-paced nature of the game, with just a 10-minute break, didn’t lend itself to advertising revenue).

As Mahendra Singh Dhoni and his team prepare to start their title defence, it’s hard not to chuckle at how, and how much, the board’s posturing on the game’s shortest format has changed.

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Chinese Foreign Minister kept waiting for Sonia appointment

As New Delhi today expressed its “disappointment” over China’s role in the Nuclear Suppliers’ Group (NSG), visiting Chinese Foreign minister Yang Jiechi, who had requested for a meeting with Congress President Sonia Gandhi, was kept waiting for an appointment.

Chinese Embassy officials told The Indian Express tonight they had asked for an appointment with Sonia before Yang left Beijing — while his schedule was being prepared — but had not heard from her office until late tonight.

In his first trip to India, the Minister has kept tomorrow morning aside for “sightseeing”, said officials, and will deliver a lecture on “India-China relations” in the afternoon.

After a meeting with External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee, Yang denied that Beijing had attempted to block consensus at the NSG. “Facts speak louder than these reports,” he said.

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Drop Iran gas transit fee or we walk out IPI

New Delhi plans to issue an ultimatum to Islamabad on the proposed Iran-Pakistan-Indian at- rural gas pipeline later this week: drop transit fee or else India may exit the project.

Murli Deora's brief for talks with his Pakistani counterpart Khwaja Muhammad Asif on April 25 is succinct: "If transit fee is further added on to the already high cost of gas, the whole project might become unattractive for India as it would result in unacceptably high levels of rate of power. So any loading of transit fees by Pakistan on India might literally be the last straw on the camel's back and then India might have to reconsider its continued involvement in the project."

The confrontational stance was phrased after a meeting of the technical teams of both sides at Islamabad on April 16-17 where Pakistan stuck to its demand that India pay 10 per cent of the gas price as transit fees. India's position was that the fee be "nominal" considering the value it brought into the project by its participation.

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