BCCI to pull out of Champions Trophy over Siva's ICC election?

If reports are to be believed, then the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has threatened to pull out of the Champions Trophy over the controversy surrounding L Sivaramakrishnan’s election to the ICC Cricket committee.

CNN-IBN said that their sources claimed the BCCI would pull out of the June 7-23 tournament in England and Wales if the election results would be referred to an Ethics officer.

Earlier, a miffed Federation of International Cricketers Association (FICA) demanded an ICC ethics committee enquiry into BCCI-backed Sivaramakrishnan’s appointment as a players’ representative in the governing body, saying captains could have been forced to vote against incumbent Tim May.

May has since made it clear that he would not be seeking reelection, but said that captains may have been forced to vote for Siva.

The ICC responded to the allegations, saying it had no evidence that pressure was brought to bear on any of the captains to change their vote in the ICC Cricket Committee elections.

However, they confirmed that there was a re-vote but said it was because there was confusion about the process, including “in respect of what should happen in the case of a tied vote and, where teams had different captains for different formats of the game, which captain should be entitled to vote”.

Sivaramakrishnan replaced May, who is also the FICA CEO after a reported re-vote pushed for by the BCCI. It is alleged that in the initial vote, May had won 9-1 but the BCCI used its financial might to coerce cricket boards of Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Zimbabwe into asking their respective captains to vote for Sivaramakrishnan.

With inputs from PTI