March 26, 2008	Wednesday	Rabi-ul-Awwal 17, 1429

MUMBAI, March 25: The International Cricket Council (ICC) has summoned Sunil Gavaskar to explain an apparent conflict of interests between his roles as a cricket committee head and a paid media pundit, an ICC spokesman said on Tuesday.

The 58-year-old former India captain has been called to meet ICC chief executive Malcolm Speed at the governing body’s Dubai headquarters to account for his controversial media columns.

“The ICC board discussed the matter last week and off the back of that, Sunil Gavaskar will be meeting with Malcolm Speed in due course to discuss the matter further,” the ICC spokesman said from Dubai.

He said no date had been fixed for the meeting.

Gavaskar, a popular television commentator, described England and Australia as “dinosaurs, still trying to voice their prejudiced opinions in the media, and may not open their eyes and see the reality” in a syndicated column at the weekend.

A report in British newspaper Times’ online edition on Tuesday said that Gavaskar is to be asked to step down as ICC cricket committee chairman.

The report said Gavaskar, a controversial figure since his retirement, was defending his criticism of match referee Mike Procter, after he had ruled against India’s Harbhajan Singh for alleged racial abuse of Andrew Symonds in January’s Sydney Test.

Gavaskar had reportedly claimed that white South African match referee Procter was biased against Indian players because of their skin colour.

Procter’s ruling was subsequently overruled by the appeals commissioner.

Asked about the issue, a senior Indian board official said: “It is between ICC and Gavaskar.”

—Reuters