BCCI hushed up India player's violation of ICC norms in Sri Lanka: IS Bindra

IS Bindra, the former BCCI president and current head of the Punjab Cricket Association, has alleged in his blog that the BCCI not only covered up a report filed by Sri Lanka Cricket in 2010 about an unauthorised person in a player’s room the night before a match, but also that an India Cements employee has been posted with the team at home and abroad. Saying that the “sanctity and credibility” of the game must be protected above all in the light of the recent allegations of spot-fixing and the way the BCCI has responded to the crisis, Bindra makes what he calls three important points. [caption id=“attachment_834467” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Indian cricket is bigger than president N Srinivasan, says IS Bindra. BCCI[/caption] The first is that if the ICC did warn Gurunath Meiyappan, N Srinivasan’s son-in-law and the erstwhile “team principal” of the Chennai Super Kings, about the company he was keeping, then the BCCI had to know about it. And if the BCCI knew about it, then the BCCI is “guilty of gross misconduct and the ICC needs to confirm this claim”. Secondly, Bindra tells a story about the India’s tour of Sri Lanka in 2010, when CCTV cameras at one of the team hotels caught an official with the team taking a girl into the room of an India and CSK player the night before a game. It was claimed that the girl was sent by someone on the ICC’s list of suspected bookies, and the ICC’s Anti-Corruption and Securities Unit was informed. But Bindra claims that Sri Lanka Cricket was arm-twisted into withdrawing the report and denying the incident, based on a report in The Sunday Times Finally, Bindra says that an India Cements Employee travels with the Indian team at all times and this person is not subect to the ICC Code of Conduct but is “privy to the Indian team’s strategy meetings and dressing room deliberations and they have access to all classified information”. That raises troubling implications, says Bindra. In conclusion, Bindra says all he wants is the game to be preserved from the damage it has suffered and have its reputation restored. You can read the entire blog post here.