Jagmohan Dalmia crowned himself king of backroom manouevering with Inderjit Singh Bindra and his loyal band once again finished on the losing side.Spicing the whole drama and lending it suspense was an order which the Hyderabad Cricket Association (HCA) got from the Additional Municipal Court in Jaipur. The order directed the Board to seal the results of the elections till Sept 23, the date of the next hearing on the HCA plea that the Board had violated its constitution by allowing an unauthorised person to attend the meeting on their behalf. HCA secretaryRanga Reddy alleged that his right to vote and propose had been taken away by the chair which authorised their president, GP Surana, to vote on their association's behalf. According to Reddy, the HCA had authorised him and not the president to attend the meeting.

If this is all confusing, then a clearer picture is that on behalf of the Bindra group, the HCA were to propose former Mumbai Chief Minister and its cricket association's vice-president Manohar Joshi's name for presidentship. According to BCCI convention, which has been violated with impunity in the recent years, the proposal had to come from South as it was their turn for presidentship. By letting the HCA president, who was aligned with the Dalmiya group, have his say, the whole Bindra group exercise got lost. An angry Bindra walked out of the meeting. But only two others walked out with him, Reddy and the president of the Himachal Pradesh Cricket Association. Clear signs of fence sitters having ditched them and their isolation from themajority.

Bindra later alleged that the BCCI meeting had violated the constitution on one more count: Jumping the agenda and electing the office-bearers before even considering the secretaries report, not passing the accounts and the budget.

``We have nothing more to say. It is for the court now to decide,'' Bindra said.

Bindra also said that the BCCI went ahead with the elections despite the court official having rung them up at 2.30 pm to inform them about the order. The court order was handed over to the Board at about 4.00 pm and the probable time of the elections was somewhere between 2.30 and 4.00 pm. The fallout of the Court order remains to be seen. The Board did not seem to be unduly worried about the order and went ahead with their agenda saying that by the time they had got the order they had already announced the office-bearers to the press.

Bindra then talked about the real issues, the issue which concerns cricket and which no one is talking about. ``There are so many issues which need tobe debated and which are of concern to all of us. It was to avoid a discussion on those issues that they avoided major points on that agenda and jumped onstead straightway to get their people elected.''

Muthiah came out from the meeting and announced a few decisions. The most important being the appointment of Kapil Dev as coach of the team for a two-year term and of a physiotherapist from South Africa, Andrew Leipus.The meeting of the BCCI will continue tomorrow, ostensibly to discuss matters cricketing and appoint the new selection committee.