December 12, 2007	Wednesday	Zilhaj 1, 1428

BANGALORE, Dec 11: The Indian cricket board came down hard on a local journalist by banning him from attending all international matches after finding him guilty of misconduct during the third and final Test between India and Pakistan here on Monday.

According to a media release of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) issued late in the day, Ajay Naidu, a freelance Nagpur-based journalist, had asked the official scorer in the press box during the second day’s play on Sunday to announce that the former Indian captain Rahul Dravid would hold a press conference allegedly on the basis of a note signed by Russell Radhakrishnan, who is the travel assistant official of the home team.

After an inquiry, which was conducted on Monday afternoon, it was revealed that Naidu had in fact forged the signature of Radhakrishnan.

The BCCI, however, in its release had claimed that the announcement was “Rahul Dravid had called a press conference to announce his retirement from Test cricket”

But the actual words that were written on the note, and announced by the scorer, were: “There will be no press briefing today by the Pakistan team, and from the Indian side, Rahul Dravid wants to talk to the media.”

The BCCI statement, signed by its honorary secretary Niranjan Shah, further said: “The BCCI condemns this act of Ajay Naidu aimed at causing embarrassment to Rahul in the midst of the Test match and in order to ensure that such irresponsible incidents do not occur in the future, it is decided to ban the entry of Ajay Naidu into the press box or press conference at any of the affiliated units of the Board.

“We are also advising immediate withdrawal of his accreditation card for all the international matches,” the statement added.