BCCI out to crack snoop-gate saga

Mumbai: The BCCI has appointed a two-man committee comprising Ajay Shirke and G. Ganga Raju to investigate the payment of about $900,000 made by the previous administration to an overseas investigating agency in 2014 when Shivlal Yadav was the interim board president, reported espncricinfo.com

According to the website, the issue was highlighted at the BCCI annual general meeting in Mumbai on Monday by senior members, who asked the board to investigate the transaction which is understood to have been made to an agency based in East Asia.

“Niranjan Shah, the president of the Saurashtra Cricket Association, raised the issue during the AGM. The members were then made aware of the case of an overseas agency being appointed in 2014 when former India offspinner Yadav replaced N Srinivasan as the BCCI head after the latter was barred by Supreme Court from occupying the chair till the 2013 IPL corruption case was closed,” the report said.

Shirke confirmed that there was a payment that had been made to an agency. “We have to find out what is this payment, where it has been made, to whom it has been made, for what purpose it has been made, who sanctioned it, who approved it,” Shirke was quoted as saying. Ganga Raju said the panel would “go deep” to unearth the exact reasons behind hiring the investigating agency. “The person who has issued the cheque has to say why he has issued the cheque. Whether he has given it for a valid purpose or not will be looked into. Was the permission of the secretary (Patel) and president (Yadav) taken or not? In what way was the IT company connected with the BCCI? If the money has gone from BCCI then we need to know what purpose it was given for and for what tasks fulfilled. We are going to go deep into it and report it back to the BCCI,” Gangaraju told the website.

Although Shah did not specify any alleged motive, some members suspect that the agency might have hacked into the private communication channels (e-mails, mobile phones) of certain members of the present BCCI administration under Shashank Manohar. Shirke said it would be inappropriate for him or the BCCI to speculate about whether the agency was involved in snooping.

“It is not proper unless it is conclusively proved. We will find out what that agency was hired for: whether there is any contract, whether they were deliverables and if they were delivered, and to whom they were delivered.”

According to Shirke even before this AGM Shah and some other members had raised the issue in a letter to BCCI secretary Anurag Thakur, asking him to look into the matter. Thakur, it is learned, then sent a letter asking his predecessor Sanjay Patel (BCCI secretary und Srinivasan and Yadav) to respond immediately. Despite two or three reminders Patel did not get back to Thakur. “Thakur told the members on Monday he had written to both Yadav as well as Thakur but neither responded,” Shirke said. Manohar then intervened and decided to appoint the two-member committee.

The December-January period is the only window available before the BCCI as per the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed with its counterpart last year. It has also been learnt that the series is likely to take place in India rather than a neutral venue. IPL Governing Council chairman and senior BCCI functionary Rajeev Shukla stated that, “We will like to play the December series in India instead of us going to a neutral venue. The Indian team can’t go to Pakistan because of safety issues. No international cricket is happening there. We also don’t want to play at a neutral venue. So, the series has to happen in India.”

As per the International Cricket Council’s (ICC) Future Tours Programme, Pakistan are to first host India at a home series — UAE, that is — in December after the two Boards agreed to play six bilateral series between 2015 and 2023. Four of those series will be hosted by Pakistan. The six tours will comprise 14 Tests, 30 ODIs and 12 T20s.

The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has also confirmed that the Pakistan series can happen and that it will seek the Union government’s permission to organise Indo-Pak cricket series in December.

According to a report, talks between BCCI and the government have begun, and they will continue post-Diwali through the good offices of BCCI secretary, Anurag Thakur.

A top BCCI official has also said that the board is willing to cut down the tour to three ODIs and two T20Is, if the government permits.