Rebuff to Bindra was along expected lines

The rebuff to IS Bindra in London was all along on the cards. With Jagmohan Dalmiya at the helm of affairs at the ICC, the odds were that Bindra's request to attend the emergency meeting, on the grounds that he had valuable information, would be denied. After all the fact remains that the former BCCI president had arrived in London unannounced and uninvited and could only hope against hope that he would be able to attend the meeting.

In the absence of BCCI president AC Muthiah, who had to hurry back midway through the trip to London following the demise of his mother in Chennai, another former BCCI chief Raj Singh Dungarpur was asked to attend the ICC meeting. It is not yet known who authorised Dungarpur's presence at Lord's but one can make a guess and perhaps not be far from the mark.

Bindra, from all reports, while being upset at his request being denied, was not surprised at his exclusion from deliberations. Not unexpectedly, he did not present his case to the ICC solicitors as he was asked to by the game's governing body.

``It seems the only possible reason for flying Mr Dungarpur could be that the ICC do not want my presence so as to preclude me from furnishing the information'' Bindra said.

Bindra, in an effort to show that he was interested in attending the meeting, also wrote to representatives of all the Boards of the countries in London and to Dalmiya, requesting that he be invited to provide ``crucial information with regard to the scourge of matchfixing and betting''.

The ICC however made it appear that it would go strictly by conventions. Chief executive David Richards, sent a letter and left a message on the voicemail of Bindra, saying that according to ICC rules, only one delegate from a country could attend the meeting.

Bindra sent a reply to Richards which put the ball squarely in the court of the ICC. He wrote ``I'm well aware of the ICC rules, and I was not seeking to be a delegate. I have come to London on my own initiative because I see this (meeting at Lord's) as a historic session of the ICC, which could make or break cricket. I believe I have some very important information which could provide a solution of this grave crisis,'' Bindra added.

The Punjab Cricket Association chief also pointed out that the ICC has been trying to deal with the problem without much success. The game might not recover unless cricket can demonstrate that it is capable of putting its house in order, said Bindra.

The former BCCI president also cited the example of the International Olympic Committee (IOC). ``When faced with a serious crisis, the IOC has been prepared to accept evidence and views of people who were not even members of the IOC.''

Bindra said he has always tried to keep all that he knows within the structure of the cricket body. ``But I was not called to the meeting of the BCCI officials and Mr Dungapur last month which Mr Dalmiya convened in Calcutta.''

Predictably enough, Bindra's comments after he had been rebuffed, has been typical. ``The ICC has whitewashed the past,'' he said. ``If I had been invited I would have presented information that would have helped them reach concrete solutions. It was not to be. I think they had a wonderful opportunity to deal with the problem. But now the only option before me is to pursue the matter with the CBI. I have no option left but to go public on the matter.'' Bindra thus makes it clear that the loss is not his, but the ICC's.

In any event, Bindra has this penchant for staying in the limelight. Within hours after the ICC meeting had ended, came the news that Bindra, in an interview to CNN, had said that Manoj Prabhakar had told him that Kapil Dev was the cricketer who had offered Rs 25 lakhs to under perform in the Singer Cup series in Sri Lanka in 1994. One way or another, Bindra manages to stay in the headlines.