Sydney:
ICC chairman and former BCCI president N Srinivasan will watch India’s World Cup semifinal against hosts Australia along with BCCI secretary Anurag Thakur while current president Jagmohan Dalmiya will not be in attendance due to health reasons.
According to BCCI sources, Srinivasan, Thakur and treasurer Aniruddh Chaudhary will arrive before the match on Thursday but it is highly unlikely that Dalmiya would make it even if India reaches the final.
“Srinivasan, Thakur and Chaudhary will be coming either on March 24 or 25th. Srinivasan in any case will be staying till March 29 in capacity of ICC Chairman. Chaudhary and Thakur are the representatives of BCCI,” a senior BCCI official told PTI today.
However, Dalmiya’s case is a bit interesting as it is believed that he cannot meet the physically demanding travel schedule of flying into Australia.
“Jaggu da is an old man now. He is not fit enough to travel 12 hours from Kolkata to Melbourne and back. It will be physically demanding and it won't be possible for him to attend the World Cup matches. As of now it's more than 90 percent assured that he won’t be travelling to Australia,” a Dalmiya confidant said today.
However, there are rumours that Dalmiya and Srinivasan are not on the same page regarding some board-related issues and the Kolkata-based administrator does not want to meet the Tamil Nadu strongman.
Meanwhile, another new development happened in BCCI since the change of guard with Usha Nath Banerjee being appointed as the chief legal advisor of the board.
Banerjee, a legal luminary from Kolkata has been a Dalmiya loyalist for long and used to fight the BCCI cases during his earlier stint in the board and was replaced once Sharad Pawar came into power. With Dalmiya's comeback, Banerjee also made a comeback in BCCI today.
