Date:30/08/2002 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2002/08/30/stories/2002083006540100.htm

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ICC may relax deadline

By G. Viswanath

Derby Aug. 29.

The International Cricket Council is likely to reschedule its August 30 deadline for cricket boards to submit the list of their teams for the ICC Champions Trophy. On Wednesday, Sri Lanka's Cricket Board threw out its players' demands, the most important of which was the sharing of the participation money the Board will receive from the ICC for taking part in the event. The Australian and England players are not likely to sign the relevant papers until the ICC redrafts the `Player Terms', removing certain clauses related to personal endorsement restrictions that aims to protect ambush marketing.

The BCCI president, Jagmohan Dalmiya, in a reply to the Indian captain, Sourav Ganguly, said that the players' views would be put before the ICC executive board meeting in Dubai.

Earlier today, Ganguly formally informed Mr. Dalmiya, on behalf of his team that "they are committed to playing for the country, but find themselves in a situation where the Player Terms they are asked to sign affects them commercially and a situation has been brought about without consulting them." The team, according to Ganguly, is willing to go out of the way by talking to individual sponsors. "As a matter of showing our willingness and in order not to stop the BCCI from fielding the best team for the Champions Trophy 2002 — we would be willing, only with regard to the Champions Trophy — to request our sponsors which are competitive to the sponsors of the Champions Trophy not to air any advertisements or publish any campaigns in the newsprint for the period that the Champions Trophy is being played, i.e. September 12, 2002 to September 30, 2002.''

"The other restrictions which are imposed by the `Player Terms' and which are sought to be imposed by the Participating Nations Agreement (PNA) which you have signed recently should be sortedout for future events by mutual discussion and should not affect us until then. We do hope that we can arrive at an appropriate solution along these lines. We are ready to discuss the same with you,'' he said.

The ICC, which recently made a categorical statement that there would be no concessions, is unlikely to accept the Indian players' offer. But first, the BCCI has to place the Indian team's proposal at the ICC's Executive Board meeting in Dubai on August 31. The BCCI may or may not agree to the offer made by the team, but it has succeeded at least in making the team communicate with it directly, and not through the former India captain, Ravi Shastri.