NEW DELHI, Aug 23: India is unlikely to adopt the Australian model in their attempt to solve the contract row threatening to devalue next month’s prestigious ICC Champions Trophy in Sri Lanka.

“We have received some documents from Australia,” Niranjan Shah, secretary of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), told Reuters Friday.

“We are studying the material, but the problems of the Indian and Australian players are different to a large extent.

“So it’s unlikely that we will be able to use their model as a template for our negotiations,” he said.

Australia reached an agreement with its players on Thursday to reduce fears of a mass boycott of the September 12-29 Colombo tournament and the International Cricket Council (ICC) has urged other boards to use their guidelines as a model for negotiations.

Top Indian stars, including Sachin Tendulkar and captain Saurav Ganguly, have refused to sign the contract because of an “ambush marketing” clause which prevents them from endorsing products of rival companies 30 days either side of ICC events.

The Australian cricket board has offered their players compensation for any sponsorship money they would lose as a result of the contract.

The provisions could lead to top Indian players, with lucrative personal sponsorship deals, losing millions of dollars if they signed the document.

Players from Australia, England and South Africa said they did not have any direct sponsorship conflict for the Champions Trophy tournament, but had refused to sign the document because the ICC deal was valid until 2007.

Shah said the Indian players’ main problem with the contract was an “images clause”, which allowed official ICC sponsors to use player images from a tournament in their advertising campaigns for up to six months after the event.—Reuters