Former Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) presidents N Srinivasan and Anurag Thakur have refused to attend the International Cricket Committee’s hearing on Pakistan Cricket Board’s $70 million (roughly R500 crore) claim for India twice refusing to play a bilateral series against their arch-rivals. The three-day hearing starts in Dubai on October 1.
Both Srinivasan and Thakur were banished from Indian cricket administration during the two-year-long Supreme Court hearing on the RM Lodha committee’s proposals that finally culminated in the apex court signing off on a new BCCI constitution on August 9, 2018.
Among the witnesses are Srinivasan, Thakur and former BCCI secretary Sanjay Patel, who in 2014 had signed on a MoU that scheduled six India versus Pakistan (bilateral) series between 2015 and 2023 with PCB hosting the first series in 2015/16.
“India have done nothing wrong to appear in a judicial hearing and that too summoned by the ICC. India and Pakistan is a bilateral matter; what business has ICC to do with it? ICC cannot compel us to play and any pressure (on BCCI) can lead to an international crisis,” said Thakur.
Saying “India should not pay a penny to Pakistan,” Thakur, a BJP MP, said: “Let Pakistan stop terror and then we can think about playing cricket.”
