No sign of Lara yet, organisers confident of him joining soon

Mumbai, Nov 19 (UNI) West Indian batting legend Brian Lara has not yet joined Mumbai Champs, the team he will be representing in the inaugural 'rebel' Indian Cricket League (ICL) tournament beginning from November 30, but the organisers here are sure that he will be joining them soon.

The practice session for Mumbai Champs outfit in the six-team ICL started in earnest last week at the Western Railway ground in Mahalakshmi here.

The organisers, however, insisted today that the West Indian great will surely join the fold later this week.

''Talks that Lara is not coming are mere speculations. We wanted the foreign players to start joining the team only from this week and are happy that Nathan Astle (New Zealand) and Van Der Wath (South Africa) have already joined us ahead of schedule,'' said ICL's marketing head Gaurav Seth.

''We are expecting Lara, Vikram Solanki (England) and Nantie Hayward (South Africa) by November 21 or 22,'' the ICL representative added.

Astle, Wath and their other teammates, including former Ranji Trophy cricketers Rakesh Patel, Dheeraj Jadhav, Robin Morris, Kiran Powar and Anupam Sanklecha, had another round of practice this morning at the Western Railway ground in Mahalakshmi.

''We will be playing warm-up matches against the Kolkata Tigers between November 23 and 25 of this month before reaching Chandigarh on the November 27,'' said team manager Prakash Kelkar.

The first edition of the tournament, bankrolled by Subhash Chandra's Essel Group, is to commence at a Panchkula stadium, near Chandigarh, on November 30.

UNI