BCCI misinterpreted committee's email - Lodha

RM Lodha, the chairman of the Lodha Committee, has said the BCCI has "misinterpreted" the committee's email to two banks on Monday, asking them to not disburse funds from the board's account to its state associations regarding two specific transactions.

"This is a misinterpretation or misconstruing of the email that was sent to the BCCI yesterday," Lodha told ANI on Tuesday. "We have not frozen any of the accounts… routine expenses for matches, cricket activities and administrative matters are not restrained."

An unnamed BCCI official had been quoted by Indian media as saying that the board was considering cancelling the remainder of the ongoing home series against New Zealand. His reasoning was that with the accounts frozen it was impossible for the board to function.

"Really unfortunate that all BCCI accounts have been frozen, there can't be any tournament without money," Thakur was later quoted as saying by the Indian Express. "Cricket cannot run without money. We don't take money from the government. We are not allowed to make payments. I can't say anything about the India - New Zealand series. Team India is No. 1 today, when we are financing state boards, questions are being raised."

Lodha said that interpretation of the committee's directive was inaccurate. "It is so clear," he said of the email. "It doesn't require any clarification.

"There is no question of cancellation of any game or series. The directive which we issued to BCCI yesterday in our email is confined to disbursement of large funds to state association and banks have been directed to ensure compliance of that. Nothing beyond that," Lodha said. "Routine expenses for matches, games, cricketing activities and other administrative matters, they are not at all restrained. There is absolutely no prohibition. There is no constraint.  The accounts of BCCI have not been frozen. This is not correct reading of our email rather I would say this is misinterpreting or misconstruing the email."

Lodha said no one from the BCCI contacted him or the committee for a clarification. "Had they contacted we would have clarified then and there. We find there is no ambiguity in our email. It is unequivocal. It is absolutely clear."

Some media outlets referenced a letter from a Bank of Maharashtra official to the BCCI on Monday, saying the bank was likely to stop transactions from the board's account because of a court directive. Lodha said the banks might have failed to understand the committee's email and that a clarification had been sent to them.

"The banks, it appears, out of their sheer anxiety or I don't know for what reason, they have not read the email fairly and passed an order for freezing the accounts," Lodha said. "But that was absolutely wrong and in the morning, as soon as we came to know, I have already clarified. Even an email has been sent to both the banks to de-freeze the account and BCCI is free to operate. I am told that it has already been done."

Responding to the directive from the Lodha Committee to halt the two payments, various BCCI officials said the decision to disburse additional funds to states under the infrastructure subsidy, and the distribution of the claims received from discontinuing the Champions League T20, had been discussed in the past by the board's finance committee, and only a formal approval from working committee was pending. The approval was given at the emergent working committee last Friday.

Lodha said, however, that the BCCI had failed to follow the timelines set by the Committee. "Had they seen our timelines properly, we had asked them to formulate (a) disbursement policy by September 30. That was not done and some additional, huge funds was going to be disbursed to the members."