Need more clarity from Lodha committee: Anurag Thakur

BCCI President Anurag Thakur said that the board needs more clarity and better communication from the Justice RM Lodha committee on the areas where the board is or isn’t allowed to spend their money. Thakur also said that a final call on whether the rest of the New Zealand tour will go on will be taken later on Wednesday.

“We need some clarity first,” Thakur was quoted by HT saying. “We need to know where we can spend our money and where we cannot. If we are stopped from paying state associations for hosting matches then cricket can’t go on. We need clarity and better communication from the Lodha committee on this,”

He claimed that the board doesn’t take any money from the government, thus it’s quite disappointing that their accounts were frozen.

“The BCCI doesn’t take money from the government. It is very disappointing that our accounts were frozen. This is a serious threat to our autonomy,” Thakur said. “I am not even sure whether the Lodha committee is actually empowered to freeze our accounts. And if the Lodha committee has not stopped money being paid to the state associations, then we need to find out under whose orders the banks stopped payments.”

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The 41-year-old lamented that it is quite shameful to see the board being questioned for raising the salaries of players despite the Indian team reaching bigger heights.

“On one hand, our Test team climbs to the number one spot in rankings while on the other hand if we try to increase the fees of the players from 7 lakh to 15 lakh then such things become questionable.”

“When we talk about allotting money to state associations to arrange matches then they restrain us from doing so. Now it is up to the state associations whether they will be able to conduct matches or not,” he said.

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“The BCCI has done exemplary work in the last few years. We are now top three in the world in all formats of the game. Our domestic tournaments are the biggest in the world. Our U-19 team is also doing well. The members are pained at the treatment meted out to them,” he added.

Disappointed with the way things were panning out he concluded saying, “There is too much interference at the moment.”