Bihar Cricket Association reinstated

The Bihar Cricket Association (BCA) has regained its affiliation with the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) after six years. The Indian board announced this development at the two-day Working Committee meeting in Chennai and added that the Bihar and Jharkand Cricket Associations will be merged, under the banner of the BCA.

Earlier, the members of the Bihar Players Association threatened to immolate themselves if the Board denied their request to reinstate the BCA. The previous regime of the BCCI stripped the BCA from its status as the lone state association in 2000, citing poor infrastructure as the cause, and the Jharkhand Cricket Association was formed. However, after repeated protests, their demands have finally been met.

Sharad Pawar, the BCCI president, will appoint a three-member committee to run the day-to-day cricketing affairs in Bihar and ensure the BCA's elections are held in time. The decision was taken after the members unanimously accepted the report of the Arun Jaitley Committee set up to look into the vexed issue.

"The Jaitely Committee report was accepted unanimously at the meeting", N Srinivasan, the BCCI treasurer, told the media. "The president of the Board has been authorised to set up a three-member committee to run Bihar cricket and also to see that they hold the association's elections. The decisions cannot be implemented in Bihar, until the legal issues before the Ranchi High Court is resolved."

Regarding the sponsorship bids, Pantaloon, a leading clothing manufacturing company, bagged the contract to provide clothing and accessories to the members of the Indian team for a sum of Rs 20 crores (approx US$ 4302000). The Board also decided to hold a BCCI Ratings and Award function for domestic cricket and televise 72 days of domestic cricket live.

"In collaboration with leading software major Microsoft, every domestic match played will be shot and analysed", Srinivasan added. "Accenture has been enrolled as a consultant for this."

The Board also announced a profit of Rs 33 crore (approx US$ 7104413) in the last financial year, with the majority of the income coming from the sale of media rights.

Regarding the PILCOM (Pakistan-India-Sri Lanka) account, Srinivasan said that the Board's auditor firm had received the books related to the account from Jagmohan Dalmiya, the former BCCI president, and the committee studied the report sent by the firm. "During the course of the meeting, the Board's auditor firm Billimoria and Company confirmed that Jagmohan Dalmiya was not empowered to transact or handle the PILCOM accounts, whose transactions were investigated by the Board, from the day he ceased to be the president of the Board", Srinivasan said. "All those expenses were recoverable from PILCOM. The Board cannot pass any judgement on the nature of expenses."

On the Board's decision to assist women's cricket, he said, "Representatives of the women's cricket body were present at the Working Committee meeting and discussed their future programme during the year with us. The Board had also decided to provide funds to other sports organisations and charitable purposes."