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| May 3, 2006 | Wednesday | Rabi-us-Sani 4, 1427 |
‘Pakistan comes to BCCI rescue’
ABU DHABI, May 2: Former President of Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) I.S. Bindra revealed that join Asian bid to host 2011 Cricket World Cup could have been ‘lost by default’ due to non-cooperative attitude of previous regime of BCCI until Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) ‘came to the rescue.’
Bindra, who attended crucial ICC Board meeting in Abu Dhabi, where India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh were awarded 2011 Cricket World Cup, claimed Jagmohan Dalmiya-backed, Ranbir Singh Mahendra-led BCCI set-up had not passed on any information and files pertaining to ICC for last 10 years, including strict 100-page ICC Compliance Manual that all bidders have to compulsorily answer.
“We failed miserably because old board had not passed on any information and documents to Mr Sharad Pawar's team and they were not even aware that a compliance report had to be submitted,” alleged Bindra.
Pawar is current BCCI chief.
“We almost lost by default. It was Pakistan that informed us a few days before (bid submission deadline of Feb 28) and you can’t ask for government guarantees (as required by the ICC in that time),” he said.
Bindra said new BCCI office-bearers came to know about ICC Compliance Manual when they went to Lahore to watch the Pakistan-India One-day International on Feb 13.
“It's unfortunate that office bearers had not passed on the files. We would have lost by default. Unfortunately, all files about ICC were lying in Kolkata, and even BCCI president, secretary or treasurer had not seen those files for 10 years,” he said referring to Dalmiya's home city.
“Everything concerning ICC was handled directly from Kolkata, without any board office bearer having a peep into documents. That's why we asked for an extension from the ICC,” he said, and thanked Australia and New Zealand for agreeing to extended deadline.
In that grace period, said Bindra, Asia produced a world class bid document. “We produced a bid that would be envy of any bid for Olympic Games or any other mega sporting event. We proved to ICC that once we have the time we could do it as well as anyone else in the world.”
Interestingly, Bindra and Dalmiya had worked hand in hand to win the acrimonious, hard-fought bids for World Cups in 1987 and 1996.—Agencies
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