Kolkata: Former BCCI president Raj Singh Dungarpur on Wednesday came down heavily on current BCCI chief Jagmohan Dalmiya alleging that he had 'mishandled' all the issues during his tenure in the past one year. "I'm amazed how he mishandles things. He is so experienced and had such good manoeuvre ability. But no president has shown himself to be as incompetent as he has...I'm surprised," Dungarpur told newsmen.
Slamming Dalmiya for his "failure" to go to England and talk to the Indian cricketers at the height of the bitter standoff over the ICC sponsorship contract, Dungarpur said, "The players have never been so discontented as now." He alleged that the players had lost confidence in the BCCI, and were now on the verge of forming a cricketers' association. Asserting that he had "full sympathy for the boys", Dungarpur took credit for his role in "breaking the ice" between the International Cricket Council (ICC) and the Indian players in London. "It was I who took (ICC chief executive) Malcolm Speed to the hotel. I also took Shastri to the hotel," Dungarpur said. Asked about the criticism levelled against him for being present at the meeting between the ICC and the players despite having no locus standi, the veteran cricket administrator said, "I have done what I should have done as a humble soldier of Indian cricket. I am very happy with what I did.
However, I was not present at the said meeting." Dungarpur also felt that the Indian board president had 'over-reacted' during the Mike Dennness controversy last year after the ICC match referee pulled up six Indian cricketers including batting maestro Sachin Tendulkar on various charges during the Port Elizabeth Test against South Africa. "Denness's mistake was that he had pulled the trigger too hard. But even then I had said that the way Dalmiya reacted was not correct," he said. Describing the former English captain as a man of integrity, Dungarpur said, "To call such a man racist would be doing gross injustice to him." "Mike Denness had not done anything so grave which could justify Dalmiya's act of barring him from performing his role as match referee," he added. Dungarpur said that South African went along with Dalmiya during the entire episode only to earn "a few bucks." Terming as 'tragic' Sahara India Parivar's decision to withdraw from sponsoring the Indian team, Dungarpur said that Dalmiya should have used his manoeuvring ability to persuade the corporate house to do a rethink. "The Board was earning so much money from them. Had the matter been handled in a better way, things would not have reached this extreme," he added.
Extras:
Dalmiya to retain post, Shah may face contest
Tags: icc 2002, icc champions trophy, india, new zealand, premadasa, sri lanka, pakistan, australia, england, bangladesh, , zimbabwe, kenya, netherlands, west indies, south africa, semi final, finals, scorecards, statistics, ground.
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