India limited-overs specialist Suresh Raina is to captain the new Indian Premier League (IPL) franchise in Rajkot, the team announced Tuesday, while confirming Australian Brad Hodge as the side's coach. Pune and Rajkot were unveiled as the new teams in the lucrative Twenty20 competition in December, replacing Chennai and Rajasthan, which were handed two-year suspensions for their involvement in an illegal betting scandal. "Suresh Raina is a remarkable player with an impeccable record in all formats of the game," franchise owner Keshav Bansal said in a statement, announcing the team would be called the Gujarat Lions. "His extensive experience combined with his great leadership skills will help us in putting together a winning strategy for the team." Having played for three IPL teams, Hodge is familiar with the popular tournament. Back home, the 41-year-old captained Adelaide Strikers in this year's Big Bash League (BBL), while also taking on an assistant coaching role. "We finalized Brad Hodge as the team coach on the basis of his successful contribution to the Australian national team and his excellent stint in the IPL," Bansal said. "I am confident that our team will benefit immensely from his guidance and mentorship." SA seeks redemption In Bloemfontein, South Africa will be keen to avenge a Test series defeat when it meets England in five One-Day Internationals, starting at the Mangaung Oval Wednesday. "There are no soft series or less important series, they are all important, particularly coming off a Test series loss," said South African coach Russell Domingo. Both teams will be looking to build on recent good results following disappointing campaigns in the 2015 Cricket World Cup in Australia and New Zealand. South Africa showed patchy form in the World Cup but reached the semifinals, where it was beaten by New Zealand. Since then, it has won a home series against the Black Caps and an away series in India. England had a poor World Cup, failing to reach the knock-out stage after losing all its matches against other Test nations. But it then beat New Zealand 3-2 in a home series, lost by the same margin against Australia and beat Pakistan 3-1 in the United Arab Emirates. Several of England's leading one-day players did not appear in the recent Test series against South Africa, including wicketkeeper-batsman Jos Buttler. Other new faces include captain Eoin Morgan, opening batsman Jason Roy and bowlers Reece Topley, Chris Jordan, David Willey and Adil Rashid, who all had some success in England's comfortable win in a warm-up match against South Africa A in Kimberley Saturday. South Africa's one-day specialists include hard-hitting left-handed batsmen David Miller and Rilee Rossouw, all-rounder Farhaan Behardien and leg-spinner Imran Tahir.
