Omitted from World Cup squad, Ambati Rayudu retires from cricket
New Delhi: Ignored for the ongoing World Cup, Indian middle-order batsman Ambati Rayudu has decided to retire from all forms of cricket, a BCCI official has revealed.
The 33-year-old Andhra batsman was in the official standbys list for the big event in UK but was ignored despite injury to all-rounder Vijay Shankar. Opener Mayank Agrawal was brought in on the team management's insistence.
The player is yet to make a formal announcement but a Board official told PTI that he has communicated his decision to the BCCI.
"He has told the Board," the official said.
Rayudu played 55 ODIs for India, scoring 1694 runs at an average of 47.05. The player, who could never break into the Test team, was in the spotlight before the World Cup.
Declared the preferred No.4 batsman by captain Virat Kohli not many months ago, Rayudu was ignored for Shankar in India's final squad for the big event.
Chairman of selectors MSK Prasad had justified the move by saying that Shankar had "three-dimensional skills". Rayudu then took a dig at that statement with a cheeky social media post.
"Just Ordered a new set of 3d glasses to watch the world cup," he had tweeted at the time.
Rayudu earned the reputation of being a temperamental player owing to several confrontations with fellow cricketers and even match officials in the domestic circuit.
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7 held for running fake call centre in South Kolkata
Kolkata (PTI): Seven people were arrested from the Parnashree area in the southern part of the city for allegedly running a fake call centre, a police officer said on Saturday.
Acting on a tip-off, police raided a house on Netaji Subhas Road on Friday night and found the fake call centre operating from the ground floor, he said.
Preliminary investigation revealed that the accused had set up a bogus company using forged documents and posed as employees of an antivirus firm to call citizens in the US, the officer said.
"The callers would gain the trust of victims and then use remote access to take control of their phones or other digital devices. The accused allegedly siphoned off large sums of money, running into millions of dollars, from victims' accounts," he said.
Five laptops, two WiFi routers, six mobile phones and four headsets were seized from the accused, he said, adding that the seven are being questioned to ascertain the full extent of the racket and to identify others involved.
