The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) today informed the Bombay High Court that it was cancelling the entire tender process regarding cricket telecast rights as also the ‘‘conditional’’ deal with Zee TV.BCCI counsel K K Venugopal informed the bench of Chief Justice Dalveer Bhandari and Justice D Y Chandrachud that the decision became easier for BCCI since the ‘‘draft letter of intent’’ sent to Zee in this connection has not been accepted by the network.ESPN-Star Sports immediately withdrew their writ petition challenging the award of Indian cricket telecast rights from October 2004-September 2008, but the telecast controversy is far from over.Accusing the BCCI of ‘‘colluding’’ with ESS, top Zee officials said they would file a petition in the Supreme Court tomorrow against the cancellation of the tender process.‘‘We will be filing a petition in the Supreme Court tomorrow and a team has already reached Delhi for this purpose,’’ Group Vice-President (corporate) Ashish Kaul told PTI.‘‘I firmly believe there is definitely a collusion and conspiracy between Jagmohan Dalmiya (BBCI chief) and ESPN-Star Sports. The court could also see it clearly,’’ Zee chairman Subhash Chandra told reporters. ‘‘We gave the money and they sent us the letter of intent. But it could not be progressed further due to court proceedings,’’ he said.But Rik Dovey, ESPN-Star Sports, MD (Asia) said he ‘‘was pretty satisfied because cricket was the winner.’’Now, the big question that remains to be answered is who will telecast the upcoming Australia series.The BCCI is considering a set of options to ensure that the match-up reaches millions of homes across the world:• Produce live telecast of three upcoming series, including the India-Australia Test series, starting October 6 on their own • Call for fresh bids, for three upcoming series from October 04-March 05. The next round of bids, said Venugopal, could take place in May 2005 for the next four years, depending on the action Zee takes.On his part, Zee’s counsel Rafiq Dada registered a strong protest and contended that they were asked to make arrangements for production and had paid also an initial amount of $ 20m to the BCCI.Though they were accepted as eligible bidder by the 14-member marketing committee of BCCI, the latter told the court that the tender had not concluded. Dada also argued that the tender had been concluded and only a few negotiations remained to be completed.
