Board in Catch-22 situation

The Nimbus salvo has prompted the BCCI to form a five-member committee which meets at colleague Arun Jaitley8217;s house in New Delhi

The Nimbus salvo has prompted the BCCI to form a five-member committee which meets at colleague Arun Jaitley8217;s house in New Delhi tomorrow. The committee comprises vice-presidents Shashank Manohar and Lalit Modi, treasurer N Srinivasan, and marketing committee member and former chief I S Bindra.

Nimbus chairman Harish Thawani has denied that his company has threatened to renege its contract, but the threat remains.

8220;The letter from Nimbus talks about material damages and the reduction in income. But we have put that aside for now and are trying to find a solution,8221; vice-president Rajeev Shukla had said after yesterday8217;s emergency meeting.

Nimbus insists that Prasar Bharti must encrypt the live feed it receives to stop piracy abroad.

The bigger story, though is the sheer desperation of Nimbus Corporation and the huge platform and income that they had been promised by the Board through matches in India.

Interestingly, that has not materialised. While the Board has categorically said: 8220;We want to be with Nimbus,8221; because this was one deal they had boasted about, activity in India has not been to that in the current financial year.

Four of the six one-dayers versus England have been played in the current fiscal. Add to that four versus the West Indies and four versus Sri Lanka though the Kolkata match was washed out. The other action was the Malaysia series. That does not really ad up to the massive boost that the Board had envisaged.

Story continues below this ad

As a desperate measure, the Board has been planning to invite various teams 8212; like Pakistan and Australia. However, responses have been lukewarm so far, because the general feeling is that the ICC calendar is anyway too congested.

Sources in the former committee said that they were assuming the BCCI was expecting a windfall of cricket in India. Some believed money power could have a very big say in the ICC. But free time wasn8217;t available.

Tim May, chief executive of the Federation of International Cricketers8217; Associations, has made it clear that he did not like the India-Australia schedules.

When Brian Lara was here for the series, he had told the media that we would have been happier had India gone to the Windies instead.

Story continues below this ad

Manohar, though, understands that with the kind of money 612 million that Nimbus has promised to pay, 8220;they will try their best to get their full value. And there is nothing wrong about it,8221; he had told The Indian Express.

Only, the opportunities have not materialised.

With inputs from PTI