ICPA who? BCCI still not impressed

KOLKATA: Much as the Indian Cricket Players’ Association may talk of shunning any ‘confrontation’ with the BCCI, the Board mandarins are still not willing to buy it. Even five months after the launch of the association in the city, the BCCI is not ready to accept it as the “official� players’ body on the ground that it’s still not a democratically elected one.
While the Board is loath to come out with any statement, wellplaced sources in the BCCI say that the situation has hardly changed from the time of its launch with much fanfare in a city hotel last November.“What was the ICPA doing all these months? If they are a truly representative body of the cricketers, how come there are other factions urging a revival of the earlier body formed way back in 1989?� sources told TNN.
What seems to have added fuel to the fire is the incident of 11 Bengal players being registered as the members of ICPA, the signing reportedly taking place in Arun Lal’s academy in the presence of Indian skipper Sourav Ganguly.
The Cricket Association of Bengal being the backyard of BCCI supremo Jagmohan Dalmiya, a section of CAB officials see it as an attempt to score brownie points against the establishment.
The Bengal players, however, were conspicuous by their absence at the ICPA function at a city hotel last Thursday where the medical insurance plans were announced. “Why this veil of secrecy about signing of the Bengal cricketers? They ought to have been paraded at the get-together,� said India A coach Ashok Malhotra, a vocal critic of the association.
Stopping short of calling the ICPA plan populist, BCCI treasurer Kishore Rungta said the Board already has three benefit plans in place. “There is a mediclaim plan which covers all first class cricketers, past and present, till the age of 75; a scheme to help any cricketer with terminal diseases to the tune of Rs 3 lakh from our internal resources apart from the usual benevolent fund. All the schemes are in operation for over five years now,� he told TNN from Jaipur.