Lodha committee clarifies: Did not direct to seize BCCI’s accounts

New Delhi: The Lodha committee on Tuesday clarified that it has not given direction to seize the bank accounts of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI). The committee said that it had asked to stop only two specific payments from the board to its state associations and the payments required for other routine affairs—such as organising cricket matches—can be continued as they earlier.

Gopal Sankaranarayanan, the Lodha committee secretary, stated that the directive which was sent to the banks was restricted to some particular payments and did not threaten the process of organising any future series.

It may be mentioned that there were reports doing rounds about BCCI cancelling the ongoing India-New Zealand test cricket series as its bank accounts have been frozen on direction of the Lodha committee.

Also Read: BCCI may cancel India-New Zealand Cricket series midway

What the Lodha Committee secretary said:

• Sankaranarayanan, while clarifying the issue, said that the communication that was sent through email to the two Indian banks did not mention the freezing of the BCCI accounts.
• The secretary stated that the committee directed the banks to only stop two specific payments from the BCCI to its associates.
• “The payments were related to an increase in infrastructure subsidy to the states, and the distribution of funds received by the BCCI from the broadcasters of the Champions League T20 because of the cancellation of the tournament,” he said.
• The committee did not want huge sums of money from the account of BCCI being transferred overnight, said the secretary.
• He said that the committee had already issued a directive to the BCCI earlier that instructed the board to avoid taking decisions on matters that are not related to the routine.
• In committee’s opinion the disbursement of such funds was not routine, he said.

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New Zealand cricket team unaware of the cancellation:

• The New Zealand cricket board, however, was unaware of the news of cancellation of the series.
• The NZ board authorities said that they did not have any communication regarding the remaining matches being cancelled and the team was attending the practice sessions for the third match in Indore as planned.
• The authorities clarified that the players will travel from Kolkata to Indore, as planned earlier, on Wednesday.
• On August 31, the Lodha Committee had issued a directive to the BCCI not to take decisions on matters regarding the future that were not routine. In the committee's opinion, the disbursement of such funds was not routine.