Cricket: Stemp called before TCCB over drug test

RICHARD STEMP, the promising young Worcestershire slow left-armer, has been summoned to appear before a Test and County Cricket Board disciplinary hearing following a routine drug test.

Stemp, 24, who claimed 28 first-class wickets at 37.64 runs apiece during his first full season at New Road this summer, finishing just one place behind his county colleague Richard Illingworth in the national averages, will attend the hearing in Birmingham next Tuesday. 'We understand that in situations like this Board procedures have to be followed but Richard fully expects to satisfy the hearing,' Mike Vockins, the Worcestershire secretary, said.

Ever more confident in their box office appeal, Pakistan have demanded a dollars 1m (pounds 565,000) guarantee to play alongside the West Indies in the triangular one-day series in South Africa next year. The secretary of the Pakistan Board of Control, Shahid Rafi, also announced yesterday that the joint bid for the 1995 World Cup between his country, India and Sri Lanka would top the pounds 3.5m offered by South Africa. The other possible venue is England.

Maintaining the national tradition for appointing prominent figures to positions of cricketing authority, Justice Naseem Hasan Singh, a Supreme Court judge and Deputy Chief Justice, has succeeded Zahid Ali Akbar, a former general, as the president of the Pakistan board.

The Indian selectors have kept faith in Mohammed Azharuddin by retaining the former Derbyshire batsman as captain for the tour of Zimbabwe and South Africa, which begins later this month.

In the wake of India's 4-0 Test series loss in Australia and subsequent poor showing in the World Cup last winter, the former captain, Kapil Dev, was mooted as a replacement. The chief selector, Gundappa Viswanath, insisted, however, that no one else was considered. India have lost six of their 12 Tests under Azharuddin and won just once, against Sri Lanka.