Board firm: Tour off if demands not met

NEW DELHI, JANUARY 7: India's Cricket series in Australia now hangs by a thread after the BCCI decided today to call off the tour if the ICC fails to meet two key demands — revoke the three-Test ban against off-spinner Harbhajan Singh and remove umpires Steve Bucknor and Mark Benson from the series.

The Indian cricket board took this strong line at a meeting this morning of top officials at BCCI president Sharad Pawar’s residence here after which the Union Minister sent a letter to ICC president Ray Mali, spelling out the two demands.

“Finally, it was decided if both these demands were not met, the tour will be called off. The BCCI stand is very clear. There was no racial comment by Harbhajan Singh,” said BCCI sources.

The top-level meeting, said BCCI sources, was a heated affair with officials pointing to the various instances of on-field misbehaviour by the Australians, including the “shoving aside of president Sharad Pawar by the Australian team” during the presentation ceremony following the Champions Trophy in India last year.

According to BCCI sources, Pawar, in his letter to Mali, stressed that “cricket is known as a gentleman’s game” and “known for fairplay”. Pawar also wanted the ban against Harbhajan to be revoked and, for now, be stayed till the appeals hearing next week.

Listing in detail the number of wrong dismissals that went against the Indians during the second Test of the high-profile four-match series, Pawar sought the removal of the two umpires for their appalling decisions in the Sydney Test that India lost by 122 runs. As per the official ICC roster, Bucknor is slated to continue for the next Test starting on January 16 at Perth while Benson is to be replaced by Pakistan’s Asad Rauf.

Apart from Pawar’s letter, the BCCI has also sent an official appeal to the ICC against the decision of match referee Mike Procter to ban Harbhajan for alleged racial abuse following a complaint from Australian skipper Ricky Ponting.

Later, Pawar told The Sydney Morning Herald: “We are giving serious thought to whether we should continue. We feel that we must take action, enough is enough. We would like to keep an extremely good relationship with the Australian board. Our relationship is extremely cordial and we would like to continue that, but this (ban on Harbhajan) is totally unacceptable.”

Pawar has also reportedly received an SMS from India’s witness during the Harbhajan hearing and star player Sachin Tendulkar, maintaining that the team should play at Perth only after the ban is revoked. According to PTI, Tendulkar wrote: “Harbhajan is innocent and I can assure you on this. In this hour of crisis, the Board should stand by him. I suggest we should play in Perth only if the ban is lifted.”

... contd.

Ads By Google

Message*	Maximum characters allowed

Name*		Email ID*
Subject*		Country*

TERMS OF USE:
The views, opinions and comments posted are your, and are not endorsed by this website. You shall be solely responsible for the comment posted here. The website reserves the right to delete, reject, or otherwise remove any views, opinions and comments posted or part thereof. You shall ensure that the comment is not inflammatory, abusive, derogatory, defamatory &/or obscene, or contain pornographic matter and/or does not constitute hate mail, or violate privacy of any person (s) or breach confidentiality or otherwise is illegal, immoral or contrary to public policy. Nor should it contain anything infringing copyright &/or intellectual property rights of any person(s).

I agree to the terms of use.