Sehwag, Gambhir in DDCA Cricket Committee

: Virender Sehwag and Gautam Gambhir have been named in the newly-formed Cricket Committee of Delhi & District Cricket Association (DDCA). Sehwag and Gambhir will be joined by Aakash Chopra and Rahul Sanghvi as they chalk out the roadmap for Delhi cricket along with powers to select coaches, selectors and other issues related to the game. While DDCA president Rajat Sharma stated that the appointments have been done as per the Lodha Committee recommendations, the powers and scope of the committee have again given rise to questions on conflict of interest. Some of the questions being asked are how can Gambhir being an active cricketer have a say in selection of selectors, who will in turn select him? Gambhir was government representative in DDCA last year, a move that was stalled by former administrator Justice Vikramajit Sen. Sehwag has a cricket academy and is also an expert on India

TV, the channel owned by the DDCA president himself. Sanghvi is associated with Mumbai

Indians while Chopra is an expert on various news channels.

Focus on the last one week of India’s tour staying on the ODI series loss and injuries to pacers Jasprit Bumrah, Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Wriddhiman Saha would have come as a bit of relief to one man.

In a way, R Ashwin would not mind the focus is off him to a great extent. For all the talk of India’s varied bowling attack, the 31-year-old is both India’s No 1 spinner and bowler -- 58 Tests and 316 wickets vouch for that.

However, the numbers that matter are what would make the tall off-spinner feel that his career is at the crossroads going into the five-match series starting at Edgbaston on August 1.

Skipper Virat Kohli electing to bat in the lone warm-up game against Essex at Chelmsford on

Wednesday – a green pitch and coarse outfield have grabbed the headlines with the unusually hot

English summer.

While visiting batsmen

NEW DELHI CHELMSFORD (ESSEX):