BCCI-Lodha panel showdown again

New Delhi : Two days before the crucial hearing in the Supreme Court, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) is locked in another bitter showdown with the Justice Lodha committee. This time the bone of contention is an email written to two nationalised banks by the secretary of the Lodha committee, directing them to not disburse funds to the state associations from the BCCI’s accounts for two important financial decisions taken at the Board’s Emergent Working Committee meeting on September 30. BCCI president Anurag Thakur threatened to call off the remainder of the India-New Zealand series upon learning that Yes Bank, one of the two banks apart from Bank of Maharashtra where the BCCI holds accounts, has put the account on freeze.The Bank of Maharashtra was also likely to stop transactions from the Board’s accounts before former Chief Justice of India RM Lodha, also the chairperson of the three-member committee, clarified to the banks that the committee didn’t order to freeze the accounts for the BCCI’s routine expenses, including for conducting matches. “We have not frozen the accounts of BCCI. The banks, it appears, out of their sheer anxiety….they have not read the email fairly and passed an order for freezing the accounts. The banks were only directed to not disburse funds to the state associations. Day-to-day affairs, routine expenditure, matches and games should go on without restriction,” Justice Lodha said.However, despite the committee’s clarification, the BCCI continued to paint a confusing picture that the freezing of accounts would not only lead to the cancellation of the ongoing India-NZ series, but also put the organisation of the future series at home in deep trouble. “The BCCI might suspend all cricket, including the ongoing India-NZ series,” Thakur told reporters in Una.