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Sachin to lead till March 2000

For Sachin Tendulkar, the week just ending seems to bring good news in a floodtide. First there was the birth of his second child -- a son. And less than 48 hours later, the national selectors meeting in Delhi named him India's captain for the rest of the season.

The selectors also picked the India A, Board President's XI and Rest of India squads, which will play three day games against the visiting New Zealand team.

Nayan Mongia, Amol Majumdar, and Hrishikesh Kanitkar were named to lead the Rest of India, India A and Board President's XI, respectively.

The new-look senior selection committee met here with Chandu Borde, in his second stint as chairman of selectors, heading the committee he has inherited from the deposed Ajit Wadekar.

''Sachin has been named captain for the entire season (upto March next year),'' BCCI secretary J Y Lele informed the media at the post-selection briefing, attended also by Borde.

''This is of course subject to his fitness, but as of now he is fit," Lele said.

Asked whether the selection committee had anybody in mind to fill the slot in the eventuality of Sachin's unavailability in future, Borde said, ''We have not thought of anybody yet. It can be decided anytime, if needed.''

Asked if Kapil Dev had been consulted while picking the teams, Lele said, "We follow the board constitution, the captain and coach will be consulted when picking the senior team."

The idea behind the selections, Borde said, was "that we wanted to see and assess the quantity of players we have, first, only then can we assess quality with a view to deciding on our viable bench strength."

Asked whether the injuries suffered by some top Indian players in recent times was due to an overdose of cricket, Lele said that ICC stipulations laid down 40 ODI and 12 Tests as the most any country could play in a calendar year. "We don't play that many, we play less than the stipulation," said Lele, adding that South Africa and Australia play more than India does.

When it was pointed out that both Australia and South Africa drew from a larger pool of players and thus placed less stress on the stars, Borde said that is why the selectors had widened their pool while picking these three teams. "If we find capable players, we will give them every opportunity, and thus lessen the pressure on the stars," the chief of selectors said.

Borde said the board was aware of the gravity of the situation with regard to injuries. The new physiotherapist, Andrew Leipus, will join the team just before the start of the first Test against New Zealand, at Mohali, on October 10, he said.

Regarding the dismal performance of the India A team against the Australian A outfit in Los Angeles recently, Borde said that the wickets were very bad. ''The board has received a letter from the organisers of the tournament who regretted the poor infrastructre,'' he said.

A number of players who represented India A in LA find their names in one or other of the three teams named today.

The India A team, which takes on the Kiwis in the tour opener at Pune, has two relatively unknown names -- Orissa off spinner Sanjay Satpahty, and Maharashtra's Sachin Nayar. Besides skipper Amol Mozumdar, the team boasts of quite a few batsmen in Bengal's Debang Gandhi, Mumbai opener Wasim Jaffer, Maharashtra's Abhijit Kale and Haryana's Jatinder Singh.

The Board President's XI led by Kanitkar will take on the tourists in a three day match at Jodhpur.

Meanwhile, the Rest of India side led by Mongia will face Ranji champions Karnataka for the Irani Trophy tie being played at Bangalore from October 1-5.

''Mongia has also been out with injuries. We wanted to try him out before the series against the Kiwis, also, he gets a chance to show his leadership skills," Borde said, of the appointment.

Justifying the absence of any Karnataka player from the three squads, Lele said the selectors did not consider any name from the state in view of its Irani Trophy match against Rest of India. ''This will give them (selectors) a chance to see the players from Karnataka. That is why Srinath and Kumble did not figure in the discussions," Lele said.

The squads are:

Rest of India: : Nayan Mongia, V V S Laxman (Hyderabad), S S Das (Orissa), Nikhil Haldipur (Bengal), Sitanshu Kotak (Baroda), Hemang Badani (Tamil Nadu), R S Sodhi (Punjab), Nilesh Kulkarni (Mumbai), T Kumaran (TN), Harvinder Singh Sodhi (Madhya Pradesh), Anant Padmanabhan (Kerala), H Ramkrishnan (Andhra Pradesh), Madana Gopal (TN) and Dinesh Mongia (Punjab).

India A: Amol Mozumdar (captain), Debang Gandhi (Bengal), Wasim Jaffer (Mumbai), Abhijit Kale (Maharashtra), Manoj Mudgal (UP-wk), A Sriram (TN), Rohan Gavaskar (Bengal), Murli Kartik (Railways), Amit Bhandari (Delhi), Iqbal Siddiqui (Maharashtra),Sanjay Satpathy (Orissa), Sachin Nayar (Maharashtra), Jatinder Singh (Haryana) and Connor Williams (Baroda).

Board Presidents XI: Hrishikesh Kanitkar (Maharashtra), Vikram Rathore (Punjab), Gagan Khoda (Rajasthan), Samir Dighe (Mumbai-wk), Virender Sehwag (Delhi), Devender Bundela (MP), P Mullick (Orissa), Harbhajan Singh (Punjab), Rahul Sanghvi (Delhi), Aashish Nehra (Delhi), A W Zaidi (UP), Sanjay Banger (Railways),Rajiv Nayyar (Himachal Pradesh) and J P Yadav (MP).

UNI