BCCI to hold meeting regarding India’s tour to Bangladesh

BCCI to hold meeting regarding India’s tour to Bangladesh: The Indian cricket governing body the BCCI is likely to hold an emergency meeting within a week to take a decision on Team India’s impending Bangladesh tour in June this year. Also among the discussed topics will be the resignation of Bangladesh’s Mustafa Kamal from the post of ICC President and blaming the ICC Chairman N Srinivasan for his exit, a media report in Dhaka said on Thursday.

A top official of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) said Mustafa Kamal’s tirade against Srinivasan is perhaps forcing the Indian board to meet and discuss the situation. He also said that Srinivasan’s supporters in the BCCI are trying to forcefully organize the emergency meeting.

“They may try to push BCCI to cancel the June tour of Bangladesh because Srinivasan is BCCI’s representative in ICC and Kamal’s tirade against him, they may argue, is now a national issue,” he said. The anonymous BCCI official further said, “But Srinivasan has large number of opponents in the BCCI who will stoutly oppose such plans, arguing that Kamal’s tirade against Srinivasan is a personal issue and BCCI cannot afford to create a diplomatic row,”

Kamal quit as the ICC president on Wednesday after he was not being allowed to present the World Cup trophy to the winners; instead of him Srinivasan did the honors and it did not go down well with him. The former Bangladesh Cricket Board chief said he was stepping down in protest against the ‘flagrant violation’ of the ICC constitution. His term was to end this June.

He also stated that according to clause 3.3 of the ICC constitution, only the president has the right to hand the trophy to the winners of a match like the World Cup final. “I was supposed to present the trophy to the winners after the Melbourne final on Mar 29. But I couldn’t do that.”

Kamal claimed he was not allowed to present the trophy to the captain of winning team in the final as his comments after the Bangladesh-India quarterfinal match had created quite a controversy. Following his announcement of resigning from the ICC Prez post Kamal said, “From here on, I will speak as the former president of the ICC,”

The BCCI official said that if BCCI cancelled the tour of Bangladesh, Kamal will surely get his government to take up the issue with their Indian counterparts in Delhi. The Indian government led by PM Narendra Modi surely will not like to cancel the cricket tour for fear of adverse impact on bilateral relations at a time when they are focusing to smoothen ties.

Kamal has made it clear in a Dhaka press conference that his fight is against Srinivasan and not against the Indian Cricket board. After all, India played a major role in getting Bangladesh its Test playing status, so it would be indeed ironic if it were to cancel its June 2015 tour of Bangladesh, where they are scheduled to play two Tests and three ODI matches.

Kamal has described Srinivasan as “mentally deranged” and upset; pro-Srinivasan supporters want to cancel the Bangladesh trip to seek revenge.

One Bengal cricket official who has represented the state board in BCCI for years stated that “Srinivasan is a national disaster,” and it is time the board got rid of a man, barred by India’s Supreme Court from contesting BCCI polls again, from representing India in ICC.

While BCCI chief Jagmohan Dalmiya has refused from commenting on this issue, saying he first needs to discuss the whole situation and all the issues involved with his board members.