Prince Charles is a funny man

I was up in Scotland with colleague Richard Sydenham, a Reuters journo who also runs bigstarcricket.com. We interviewed Shoaib Akhtar after the match against India had been cancelled and were left happy with his honesty and quote-friendly answers, despite the media uncertainty over recent doping case.

Read the whole interview here, but here was the best line when he met Prince Charles in Glasgow:

"It was good to meet Prince Charles; he’s a funny man and is a very easygoing person. I met him for the second time, he’s a fantastic human being. He asked me if I have any family in London and I told him that I have been living in England (on and off) for the last ten to 15 years, so he asked if I was brought up with English friends and I said ‘Yes Sir, a bit of my upbringing comes from England'. He also said to me ‘So you’re the fastest (bowler) in history', and I said ‘Yes I am, it’s an honour’. It was good fun and good meeting him."

Familiar outcome; busy in Mohali

Glenn McGrath looked back to his probing best today. If only Vettori and Oram had taken the Kiwis to victory after a great fightback then England might have taken an early Ashes advantage, for what it's worth.

It's been a busy day in Mohali for one Indian media colleague. The ICC handed out some serious paperwork to the media today, so why not delve into several governing body-related pieces Harish has also written: Drugs, Umpire Hair and BCCI all covered. Then there's the Mohali match report.