Chief Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday took over the reins of the Gujarat Cricket Association (GCA) from Congress after he waselected as its president in the Annual General Meeting of the body.

“At the AGM held at the Motera stadium here, Modi was elected the president while Gujarat Minister of state for Home Amit Shah was elected vice-president of GCA,” sources in the GCA said.

With this win in GCA, Modi is set to enter cricket administration like other politicians including former BCCI chief Sharad Pawar and his own party leader Arun Jaitely, who is currently heading Delhi and District Cricket Association.

GCA was controlled by Congress leader Narhari Amin. But Modi’s Home Minister Amit Shah was engaged in long drawn political as well as legal battle with Amin group for the last one and half year for the control of cash rich GCA.

Captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni and his deputy Yuvraj Singh retained the top two slots in batsmen’s list, while Team India managed to cling on to second position in the ICC ODI Rankings issued on Monday.
Dhoni held on to his numero uno status with 828 rating points while left-handed Yuvraj, who had managed his career best ranking last month, had 784 points in his kitty.

The Indian duo are followed by Australia’s Mike Hussey (767), West Indies batsman Shivnarine Chanderpaul (759) and his skipper Chris Gayle (756) in the list.

Virender Sehwag (seventh), Sachin Tendulkar (14th) and Gautam Gambhir (17th) stuck to their respective positions.

Meanwhile, South Africa remained on top of ODI Championships table, followed by India and Australia at second and third.

Among the bowlers, injured left-arm pacer Zaheer Khan continued to be the only Indian in top 20 at 16th.

Sri Lankan Nuwan Kulasekara tops the bowlers’ list.

C K Naydu

Gautam Gambhir became the number one batsman, replacing Pakistani run-machine Mohammad Yousuf in the latest ICC Test Player rankings

Incidentally, Gambhir reached the top when the ODI batting chart is also led by an Indian, Mahendra Singh Dhoni.

Yousuf, who had returned to the batting table last week in number one position after his century in the first Test at Galle, flopped in the second Test to drop to fifth position. Accordingly, Gambhir became the sixth India batsman to lead the batting table in this version of the game.

The 27-year-old left-handed opener is the first Indian batsman after former captain Rahul Dravid to top the batting chart. Dravid had briefly become the number-one batsman after hitting centuries in each innings (110 and 135) of the Kolkata Test against Pakistan in March 2005. Dravid had first achieved the top batting ranking in January 1999 and has been number-one for 36 Tests between 1999 and 2005.