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ICC welcome opportunity to meet
with BCCI and Anil Kumble
The International Cricket Council today welcomed the opportunity to
meet with the President of the Board of Control for Cricket in
India, Mr Jagmohan Dalmiya and Indian cricketer, Anil Kumble, in
Calcutta next week on the issue of player terms for the ICC Cricket
World Cup 2003 (ICC CWC 2003).
ICC Chief Executive Officer, Malcolm Speed, confirmed that a member
of the ICC's World Cup Contracts Committee, former Zimbabwean judge,
Justice Ahmad Ebrahim and ICC General Manager - Cricket, David
Richardson, will travel to India on Monday for an update from the
BCCI and the players on their negotiations.
Mr Speed, said that the meeting would be another important step in
finding a solution to the issue.
"Since the Champions Trophy, the ICC has been working on finding a
way of ensuring that cricket's commercial partners are protected
while also assisting the Boards to meet their commitments.
"Over recent weeks we have been able to hold several very
constructive and reasonable discussions with our commercial partners
and representatives of the players from most countries."
"These discussions have seen progress with many Boards on the key
areas of the use of player attributes and the restrictions placed on
players. They deal with the issues that were raised prior to the
Champions Trophy."
In November the BCCI advised the ICC that it would take
responsibility for handling the negotiations on these issues with
its players and Mr Dalmiya has been leading these negotiations.
The meeting follows on from a letter to the BCCI from the ICC asking
for an update on the progress of the negotiations between the BCCI
and the Indian players.
"This meeting will allow the ICC to hear directly from the BCCI and
Anil Kumble on how their discussions are proceeding," said Mr Speed.
"Hopefully during the meeting the BCCI will be able to indicate that
it is now more confident of being able to meet its commitments to
the ICC and to the other cricketing nations," said Mr Speed.
The meeting will be the first time that the ICC has been able to
meet with a representative of the Indian players since its
discussion with several members of the team in the lead-up to the
ICC Champions Trophy
The lead-up to the Champions Trophy highlighted that while all
Boards had given contractual undertakings to the ICC in early 2002
for the ICC CWC 2003 through their Participating Nations Agreements
(PNA), some Boards were likely to have difficulty getting the
agreement of their players to the Player Terms that were part of the
PNA.
"The ICC remains committed to ensuring that the best players play in
the ICC Cricket World Cup and to finding a pragmatic solution to
this issue to allow this to happen," said Mr Speed.
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