Mumbai Indians sign Lendl Simmons

Lendl Simmons, the West Indies batsman, has signed up for the Mumbai Indians after the IPL technical committee approved him as a replacement for Jalaj Saxena. Saxena had been ruled out the season after sustaining a finger injury in his right hand during a training session.

Simmons, who has played close to 100 international matches for West Indies, had a stellar season with Guyana Amazon Warriors in last year's Caribbean Premier League, where he emerged as the team's highest run-getter with 263 runs from nine matches at 33.25 to power them into the final, which they eventually lost against Jamaica Tallawahs.

Since then, however, Simmons' form has tailed off a little in the shortest format. He managed just 77 runs from five matches in the Champions League Twenty20 for Trinidad & Tobago, and was just as indifferent in West Indies' World T20 campaign, where he scored just 88 runs in five innings.

Simmons is likely to be available for Mumbai Indians' next match, against Sunrisers Hyderabad tomorrow. His new team have had a dismal start to the season, losing their opening four games and are rooted at the bottom of the IPL table.

South Africa's Rossouw joins Royal Challengers
Royal Challengers Bangalore have named South African batsman Rilee Rossouw as the replacement for Nic Maddinson, who was ruled out of the IPL because of a hand injury. Rossouw, who represents South African franchise Knights, has scored 1362 Twenty20 runs at a strike-rate of 126.81 and was the top-scorer for the franchise in this year's domestic T20 competition. He had been part of the Royal Challengers squad for the 2012 season.

Shouldn't have batted at No.3 - Gambhir
With three noughts from four matches, Gautam Gambhir has been one of the flops of IPL 2014 so far. After registering ducks in his first three innings, Gambhir demoted himself down to No.3, but found little success even there, as he scratched around for a five-ball 1 against Kings XI Punjab. Gambhir took full responsibility for his decision, which backfired and resulted in a second loss for Kolkata Knight Riders.

"I am not sure of my decision to have batted down the order in the last game against Kings XI Punjab," Gambhir wrote in Hindustan Times . "I think it not only made me even more anxious sitting and waiting for my turn but more importantly, it disrupted Manish Pandey's rhythm who was surely finding his bearings at the No 3 slot.

"I wanted to see if I got my form back by dropping down the order. The bigger picture was that if I scored runs at No 3 and got my confidence back then it would surely augur well for the team and I can go back to opening the innings in the next game.

"But we missed an equally important aspect: how will the other batsmen react to this shuffle. More importantly, in hindsight, I felt I let down the leader in me. I should have taken the bull by its horns and continued trying to excel while opening the batting."

Sandeep revels under experienced heads

While Glenn Maxwell and David Miller have hogged most of the headlines for Kings XI's perfect start to the season, Sandeep Sharma has quietly been making a name for himself. Boasting an impressive economy rate of 5.63, Sandeep already has seven wickets, as well as two Man-of-the-Match awards to his name, and the medium-pacer credited the senior members in the side for their valuable inputs.

"Bala paaji (L Balaji) has been really helpful when it comes to preparing me for situations where I might get hit for runs and will have to maintain my cool," Sandeep told iplt20.com. "This is his seventh IPL and he has faced a lot of difficult situations while bowling. Talking to him about it will keep me better mentally and physically equipped to face such situations when they arrive.

"(Mitchell) Johnson and I are completely different type of bowlers, but what I have been leaning immensely from him is how to prepare yourself for the match in your practice sessions, how to conduct yourself confidently on the field and how to plan your moves based on the batsmen and situation.

"For instance, in our last match (against KKR), I was bowling my last over and was hit for boundaries off the first two balls. Mitchell came to me and said that the bowling plan and the field that I was using was for a top-order batsman and it will not work against the tail-enders. He asked me to bowl straight length balls from over the wicket instead of using variations and trying to create angles."

Maxwell catch was easier - Starc

Mitchell Starc has described his stunning diving catch to dismiss Glenn Maxwell in Royal Challengers Bangalore's last game as a "little easier" than his equally brilliant effort near the boundary to get rid of Wriddhiman Saha.

"Maxi's catch was more satisfying because he has been scoring heavily and I was happy to get him out cheaply. It didn't do us any good in the end but I was happy to take a couple of good ones," Starc said. "Technically, however, I found Maxi's catch a little easier. Saha had hit the ball hard and I didn't know to which part of the boundary it was going. Also, I had to maintain my balance very close to the rope. For me, getting low in front is easier than the balancing act."

With already several deserving nominees for catch of the tournament, Starc's two grabs are also bound to make the list, and the seamer shed light on his technique which has served him well over the years.

"I always have my fingers pointed down; I don't like to catch with fingers facing skywards," he said. "Back home, most players favour the reverse cup method and some also say it is easier to get into the right position. But I have been used to the other method since childhood and it has stayed with me."

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Chris Adams to work with Sri Lanka

Former Surrey coach Chris Adams has been appointed as a consultant for Sri Lanka for their upcoming tour of England. SLC had conducted a search for a coach with English experience since losing Paul Farbrace's services last week, and have settled on Adams, who played 331 first-class matches, scoring 48 hundreds, in addition to his five Tests and five ODIs.

The appointment was made on the recommendation of a three-man panel comprising chief selector Sanath Jayasuriya, head of coaching Jerome Jayaratne and chairman of the cricket committee Ranjit Fernando - the same trio that had also recommended Marvan Atapattu be appointed interim coach.

Both the consultant and interim coach appointments were rubber-stamped by the SLC executive committee on Monday, an official release said. Ruwan Kalpage's interim role as assistant coach was also confirmed until the end of South Africa's July tour of Sri Lanka.

Adams had become Surrey coach in 2008, but a poor start to the 2013 county season following a string of mediocre results in previous years, contributed to his mid-season removal. Sri Lanka's former coach Graham Ford eventually replaced him, after Alec Stewart had borne the coach role temporarily in 2013.

One of Wisden's five Cricketers of the Year in 2004, Adams had been a highly successful captain at Sussex, whom he led to their first County Championship title in 2003, then again in 2006 and 2007, as well as to limited-overs titles. Known for his bruising strokeplay, Adams had hit 19,535 first-class runs at 38.68.

He will be hoping to help Sri Lanka outwit an England side coached by Peter Moores who Adams formed a strong partnership with at Sussex as captain and coach. Moores, subsequently also a Championship winner with Lancashire, was reappointed as England coach last week - having previously held that position between 2007 and 2009.

Sri Lanka will hope Adams' local knowledge, gleaned over 20 years as a player and five as a coach, will aid them in their travels, particularly in the Tests at Lords and Headingley. They play one T20I, five ODIs and two Tests against England, starting on May 22.

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No sign of BCCI calling AGM on Srinivasan issue

More than a week has passed since the BCCI discussed convening a special general meeting to replace N Srinivasan on the board's disciplinary committee, but now it appears as though the meeting may not happen in the near future.

An SGM requires a 21-day notice period but as of today no notice had been served by the BCCI secretary to any of the board's member units. According to BCCI regulations, for an SGM to be convened, the secretary must issue the notice within ten days of "a resolution of the working committee". However, because there was no resolution passed at the working committee meeting on April 20, neither the secretary Sanjay Patel nor acting president Shivlal Yadav, who has powers to call a meeting in special circumstances, are in a hurry to convene the meeting.

Representatives of at least one member from all five zones who attended the working committee meeting confirmed to ESPNcricinfo that despite a vocal suggestion to convene an SGM, no resolution was passed. Patel, who is set to lose his post at the Baroda Cricket Association, didn't respond to questions, but a BCCI source revealed the SGM may not be convened at all.

One of the cases waiting to be heard by the disciplinary committee, which comprises BCCI president Srinivasan and vice-presidents Yadav and Rajeev Shukla, is that of Ajit Chandila, one of three Rajasthan Royals cricketers arrested on corruption charges during the 2013 IPL. He filed a reply to the disciplinary committee in April but the case has not proceeded because the Supreme Court sidelined Srinivasan from the BCCI's affairs as a fall out of corruption allegations in the IPL.

While the ruling faction in the BCCI believes the remaining two members of the disciplinary committee can meet and decide on Chandila, a bereavement in Yadav's family has resulted in the acting president taking a break from his responsibilities.

Amol Karhadkar is a correspondent at ESPNcricinfo

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Sangakkara to play two Durham matches

Kumar Sangakkara will play two County Championship matches for Durham, against Yorkshire and Sussex, in preparation for Sri Lanka's tour of England. Sangakkara will miss Sri Lanka's two ODIs in Ireland, and will join the squad after completing his second Durham match on May 14, ahead of Sri Lanka's warm-up one-dayer against Kent.

"I'm really looking forward to returning to county cricket with Durham and I'm immensely grateful for the opportunity," Sangakkara said. "I actually made my debut for Warwickshire against Durham back in 2007 - I scored a few runs that day so I'm hoping to make amends this time around."

Sangakkara had sought a short-term county contract in order to acclimatise to England's early summer conditions and the Duke ball, but had to wait on clearance from the national selectors, and a no-objection certificate from the board, before confirming the deal with Durham. Sri Lanka play their limited-overs leg of the tour first and switch to Test mode via a first-class match against Northamptonshire starting June 5.

Last week, chief selector Sanath Jayasuriya had said he had hoped up to six Sri Lanka players would travel to England early in order to undertake early-season Duke-ball training, but that those plans had been upset by the departure of Paul Farbrace, who was expected to have facilitated the extra training time. At present, it appears only Sangakkara has secured a county stint - and that, only after significant effort.

"To attract a player of Kumar Sangakkara's quality to Durham is fantastic, and I've been really impressed by his eagerness to join us," Durham coach Jon Lewis said. "In his short stay, I'm sure he'll be a big asset - not just with his performances, but with the example he will show our crop of fine young cricketers."

The tour represents an opportunity for Sri Lanka to win their first Test in England since 2006. Sangakkara will also be set on improving an Test average of 30.58 from nine Tests in England - a figure that pales in comparison to his career average of 58.07.

In February, Sangakkara said his decision to withhold his name from the IPL auction this year had been partly motivated by the desire to prepare for the England tour, as well as acknowledgement of a tight May schedule. During Sri Lanka's most recent tour of England in 2011, Sangakkara and Mahela Jayawardene had missed a warm-up match due to IPL commitments.

Sri Lanka play Tests at Lord's and Headingley, the first of which begins on June 12. Durham's match against Yorkshire begins on May 4 and the Sussex match on May 11.

Andrew Fidel Fernando is ESPNcricinfo's Sri Lanka correspondent. @andrewffernando

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Scotland appoint Bradburn as head coach

Grant Bradburn, the former New Zealand international, has been named as Scotland's new head coach. His first major job will be to prepare them for next year's World Cup, which Scotland qualified for under the temporary coaching team of Paul Collingwood and Craig Wright, who remains as Bradburn's assistant.

Scotland take on England in an ODI in Aberdeen in less than two weeks' time, although Bradburn will not assume control until July 1. His appointment brings some stability to the Scotland set-up, after Peter Steindl stepped down following the team's failure at the World T20 Qualifier last year. Wright's new role will also see him take charge of the Elite Player Development Programme, with fielding coach and analyst Toby Bailey and strength and conditioning coach Simon Smith completing the set-up.

Bradburn's appointment is until the end of 2017 and takes in the next Intercontinental Cup, which will give one Associate nation a shot at playing Test cricket, as well as the 2016 World T20 in India. His most recent role was as head coach of New Zealand A and the Under-19 side and before that he spent five successful years with Northern Districts.

"It is an honour to be named as coach of Scotland," Bradburn said. "This is a fantastic opportunity to work with players and staff at Cricket Scotland and I am thrilled at the prospect of working with a nation trying so hard to build on recent success.

"As a coach, this presents a great opportunity to add value, by driving continual improvement, building depth with healthy competition for Scottish representation. The Scotland team have performed well by qualifying for the 2015 World Cup, which will be played in New Zealand and Australia at venues that I am very familiar with. With my appointment through to the end of 2017, I will focus sharply on continuing Scotland's progress towards being a leading force in world cricket. I am also motivated to contribute to Scotland Cricket's overall performance systems, aligning with each region to build clear player pathways and assisting more Scottish players to step up onto the world stage.

"Cricket Scotland has a high-quality team of people supporting the players, with excellent systems in place. With my experience of orchestrating successful high performance environments, I look forward to working with the players and staff at Cricket Scotland and assisting them to continue to grow and perform."

Bradburn, an offspinner, played seven Tests and 11 ODIs for New Zealand between 1990 and 2001. He will be introduced to Scotland's players and support staff in May and attend the England ODI, for which Wright will coach the side.

As part of its restructuring, Cricket Scotland has also increased Andy Tennant's responsibilities from being Head of Performance to become the Director of Cricket, in charge of all strategic and operational cricketing matters. Bradburn will report directly to Tennant.

"We are delighted that we have been able to attract a coach of Grant's ability and pedigree to head up our national team programme," Tennant said. "During the recruitment process, Grant was able to show the vision, foresight and attributes we were looking for to drive our Scotland national team through the World Cup and onwards to the next Intercontinental Cup and WCL cycles. He has an exceptional track record of producing international cricketers and is used to working in similar environments to the one he will find in Scotland.

"With Craig, Toby and Simon as his coaching team, as well as the ability to bring in other specialist assistance as required, we believe we have all the building blocks in place to build on the recent success in New Zealand. I very much look forward to working with Grant when he arrives.''

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KXIP sweep UAE leg with fifth win

In a game crippled by poor batting, Royal Challengers Bangalore limped to 124 and Kings XI Punjab were in danger of failing to chase that middling total, before they hung on to win by five wickets and leave the UAE with their fifth win in as many games. Chris Gayle, playing his first game of the season, and the rest of his team-mates failed to show up for the second game in a row and Royal Challengers lost seven wickets inside 15 overs. Kings XI also had their moments of anxiety at 88 for 5, but Rishi Dhawan and George Bailey completed the chase with seven balls to spare.

Royal Challengers showed poor game sense from the beginning, starting from Gayle's unusual approach of going ballistic from ball one. Gayle was forced to sit out the first four games due to injury and in the urge to make up for lost time, hammered 20 off the opening over by Glenn Maxwell, though not in the most convincing manner. But when attempting to dish out the same treatment to Sandeep Sharma the following over, he played one impetuous stroke too many and that started a slide Royal Challengers never recovered from.

Sandeep, the right-arm seamer, gets prodigious inswing and that helped in trapping Gayle and Virat Kohli, though he was lucky to get the latter. The swing took the ball past leg stump when the ball struck Kohli's pads but Billy Bowden was convinced it was hitting the stumps. A horrified Kohli trudged back after a pause, and the scowl hardly left his face through the game.

The top order fell to some inspired seam bowling from Sandeep and Mitchell Johnson who pitched the ball up and induced edges. AB de Villiers failed to take charge of the innings as he tamely lobbed the ball to backward point off Dhawan. The responsibility fell on the inconsistent Yuvraj Singh, and though he showed glimpses of his old self with his on-side flicks, he too fell to a poor shot. He pulled a short ball and found David Miller at deep midwicket with pin-point precision. It was a questionable shot, given the circumstances. Yuvraj was the last recognised batsman and Royal Challengers were three short of 100 with more than five overs to play.

The loss of wickets dried up the boundaries. Incredibly, Royal Challengers failed to score a boundary off the last seven overs, with only two instances of the ball crossing the ropes, via leg byes.

With a paltry 124 to defend, Royal Challengers needed quick wickets. Two brilliant catches at fine leg by Mitchell Starc gave them hope. A pick up shot by Wriddhiman Saha nearly cleared the rope but Starc hung on despite covering several yards near the edge of the rope. Maxwell tried the same shot but Starc this time hung on, diving forward. Maxwell's wicket gave Royal Challengers hope but for the second time in as many games, Kings XI managed without him.

Miller and Virender Sehwag kept Kings XI on track with a stand of 45. However, a double-strike by the legspinner Yuzvendra Chahal added a twist. Miller edged a googly, Sehwag was adjudged caught behind as well but replays showed he hadn't nicked it. It left Kings XI at a edgy 88 for 5, but they still held the edge thanks to a comfortable required rate of 5.28 and depth in batting.

Dhawan eased the nerves with a square cut for four off Dinda and a dab to third man off Yuvraj. The captain Bailey played second fiddle and the pair sealed the win in the 19th over. Royal Challengers succumbed to their third loss, and will need a quick turnaround once the tournament returns to India.

Kanishkaa Balachandran is a senior sub-editor at ESPNcricinfo

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CAB to push for Srinivasan's exclusion from ICC

The Cricket Association of Bihar, the petitioner in the ongoing Supreme Court case against the BCCI, says it will seek a bar on N Srinivasan representing the board at the ICC, and will even look at taking the legal fight on that front outside India. The case next comes up for hearing before the Supreme Court on Tuesday.

At the ICC, which has officially not registered any protest or public discussion on Srinivasan's latest problem, one Full Member board official said the CAB's plan "must be music to the ears" of his colleagues on other boards. The ICC and the other nine Full Members - who have deemed it an internal matter of the BCCI - are essentially looking to the Supreme Court for a direction on the issue of Srinivasan being the Indian representative at ICC board meetings.

The Supreme Court has so far held that Srinivasan "cannot come back as BCCI president" until the completion of an investigation into the alleged betting and spot-fixing scandals in the IPL. However, Srinivasan attended the ICC meeting on April 9 and 10, and is set to become the new chairman in July.

In its hearing last Tuesday, the Supreme Court had asked Justice Mukul Mudgal - who carried out the initial report which led to Srinivasan being ordered to stand down from BCCI duties - to take on a more empowered investigation because the probe panel proposed by the BCCI was mired in conflict of interest. This Tuesday, the court is likely to hear from the Mudgal panel about the terms of reference and nature of assistance needed in carrying on with the probe.

With the court due to go into its vacation break on May 11, the petitioners are likely to plead with greater urgency for Srinivasan's exclusion from the ICC.

Aditya Verma, secretary of the unrecognised Cricket Association of Bihar, said he was confident the court would be sympathetic to their plea. "This is a clear-cut technical issue. If you have been barred from the BCCI, how can you go to the ICC? The BCCI is a member body of the ICC, and you are representing BCCI only, aren't you?"

The court could, however, take the view that the ICC is an international body and doesn't fall under its jurisdiction, or even point to the absence of any protest from the ICC or any of its members against Srinivasan.

"The same happened with the BCCI," Verma said. "The BCCI members didn't stand up to Srinivasan. Similarly, if the ICC doesn't stand up, and if it doesn't fall under our court's jurisdiction, we won't shy away from going and fighting it out in Dubai, where the ICC is based."

Earlier this week, Nalini Chidambaram, one of the plaintiff's counsel, had told ESPNcricinfo that they had already made a prayer against Srinivasan's ICC role and she compared Srinivasan's insistence on being part of the ICC to "a man who is not fit to be a High Court judge but he wants to be a Supreme Court judge".

It is understood that at ICC's latest executive board meeting held in Dubai on April 9-10, some of the board directors had raised concerns - more murmurs than vocal objections - against Srinivasan's presence. However Srinivasan is believed to have responded saying it was a few disgruntled people trying to haul him up. His message, the member board official said, was passed via the chairman of another board, who was responding to the few questions that were raised.

Srinivasan's detractors say he is in direct violation of Rule 2.1 of the ICC's Code of Ethics which states: "Each Director shall act in an honest and ethical manner. In order to facilitate the transparent operation of the ICC, conduct that gives the appearance of impropriety will also be unacceptable. Directors shall not engage in any conduct that in any way denigrates the ICC or harms its public image. No funds or assets of the ICC may be used for any unlawful purpose, and no Director may engage in unlawful conduct."

According to the member board official, the ICC Code of ethic says "each of the directors have a positive obligation" to challenge Srinivasan. According to Rule 8. 3 in the ICC's Code of Ethics: "Each Director has the obligation not only to abide by the Code of Ethics, but also to report violations of the Code of Ethics when they become aware of them."

Sidharth Monga and Nagraj Gollapudi are assistant editors at ESPNcricinfo

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