Calcutta meeting a damp squib

It was a much hyped meeting between the President of the International Cricket Council and the office bearers of the Board of Control for Cricket in India. There was much anticipation that the meeting in at the Taj Bengal hotel in Calcutta on Tuesday would provide some concrete solution to solve the betting and match fixing problem affecting the game of cricket. However, after four hours of talks between Jagmohan Dalmiya and AC Muthiah, President of the BCCI, JY Lele, secretary, BCCI, Jyoti Bajpayee, joint secretary, BCCI, Kishen Rungta, treasurer, BCCI and eminent BCCI members like former president Raj Singh Dungarpur, the end result of the meeting can be termed as almost zero.

Addressing a joint press conference, both the ICC President and the BCCI President said that the meeting had been satisfactory. Speaking on the Chandrachud report, the BCCI President said, ``We had given the Sports Ministry a copy of the report two years back. We will request them to present it in the parliament as the betting issue has become a topic of discussion there. Other than that, the Chandrachud report will be made available to the public through the internet. We will shortly be putting up the entire report on the net''.

At the conference, Dalmiya spoke about the following decisions:

1) No new enquiry committee will be set up by the BCCI. However, the BCCI will help and co-operate with all ongoing investigations that are being conducted by the Delhi Police, the Government of India and any other investigative agency.

2) The Chandrachud report will be tabled at Parliament and on the Internet.

3) Former BCCI president IS Bindra to be questioned by the BCCI on certain issues. Amongst them the most important will be to ask him to name the Pakistani cricket official who had informed Bindra about a fixed match at Sharjah. The ICC has asked the BCCI to gather all possible information from Bindra and present it to the former before the ICC executive committee meeting of the ICC at London on May 2 and 3.

4) The BCCI has directed all former and present players to help the investigative agencies if they have any information about match fixing and bookies.

5) Sports loving people and media have also been asked to lend a helping hand.

6) The BCCI will hand over the reports of four former managers of the Indian team to the Delhi Police and the Sports Ministry. They are Brijesh Patel, Jyoti Bajpayee, Subba Rao and Madan Lal. The reason for taking such a step was because Bindra had alleged that the four had reports of betting and match fixing in their reports.

7) The BCCI decides to implement a six point code of conduct for players. The code of conduct is broadly based on the suggestions made by the ICC code of conduct commission headed by Lord Hugh Griffith.