Maravan Atapattu

Melbourne: Briefly, it seemed Sri Lankan captain Maravan Atapattu would go the Shoaib Akhtar way ? owing, of course, to a different reason ? and pull out of Monday?s tsunami fund-raising ODI here.

However, in a chat with The Telegraph late on Saturday, Asia manager Syed Ashraful Huq said Atapattu would, after all, arrive on Sunday.

?Till yesterday, Maravan?s daughter was very ill and it appeared he would miss the game. Thankfully, her condition has improved and, so, Maravan will come ? only, on a later flight and not with the other Sri Lankans,? Huq informed.

The two Pakistanis (Yousuf Youhana and Abdul Razzaq), Alok Kapali of Bangladesh and coach Bob Woolmer are also going to arrive on Sunday. Captain Sourav Ganguly as well.

As for the ICC squad, England?s Darren Gough was the one to report by Saturday evening. Captain Ricky Ponting and the rest should follow in the morning.

Meanwhile, if a half-hour delay in the Sydney-Melbourne fight wasn?t bad enough ? given that it happened after a nearly 12-hour journey from Mumbai and the transit halt ? Anil Kumble found his suitcase missing on arrival here.

Quite hassled, Test cricket?s most successful bowler in 2004 chose to stay back at the airport instead of requesting the liaison gentleman to follow-up with the airline.

Fortunately, that one piece of baggage was traced after half-an-hour. Apparently, a fellow-passenger had taken it off the belt and, instead of putting it back right there, dumped the suitcase elsewhere.

Footnote: The Asian Cricket Council, one learns, has been flooded with emails questioning its decision to go along with the ICC move of giving the earnings from Monday?s fund-raiser to World Vision, an organisation associated with a particular religion. Most have emailed that a ?neutral? world body ? like Unicef or the Red Cross ? ought to have been the beneficiary. Well, this will have to be given much thought before match No. 2.