M A I N   N E W S

Amnesty on ICC agenda

LONDON, May 2 (PTI) — The International Cricket Council (ICC) which met here today is understood to be considering a proposal to give amnesty to players and officials to give evidence to prove match-fixing allegations and virtually cleared the world body’s President Jagmohan Dalmiya of any involvement in the negotiations of the 1998 ICC knockout Cup telecast bid.

Briefing reporters at the end of the first day’s deliberations of the two-day extraordinary meeting of the ICC executive board, its Chief Executive Dave Richards said: “We have come up with a very constructive proposal which would be adopted tomorrow” without giving any details.

According to ICC sources, the proposal was to provide amnesty to players and administrators coming clean on match-fixing allegations.

Richards announced that the meeting, called specifically to address the raging betting and match-fixing scandal in the wake of the Hansie Cronje episode, had accepted a proposal put forward by Lord Ian MacLaurin, Chairman of the England Cricket Board, that office-bearers and administrators declare that they have no “financial interests” in the dealings of their respective boards.

Lord MacLaurin proposed that board office-bearers give an undertaking that they had “no financial interests, direct or indirect, in the game of cricket, either nationally or internationally, other than those which have been declared to by the domestic board”.

The ICC also released a statement detailing the process followed for awarding telecast rights for the 1998 Dhaka tournament.

Dalmiya has filed a criminial defamation case against Prasar Bharati’s former official Arun Aggarwal for making allegations of telecast rights fixing in Doordarshan during the ICC tournament.