Cricket: Sanctions threat to players

By RICHARD BOOCK

New Zealand Cricket chairman Sir John Anderson is leading a call for international players to face sanctions, including suspension, should the Champions Trophy tournament be jeopardised by boycotts.

But the influential NZC boss has denied reports that he called for India to be banned from the game until their players agreed to sign their ICC contracts.

The revelations about Sir John's hardball approach came as the Sri Lanka-based tournament lurched into a fresh period of uncertainty, brought about by a dramatic change of heart in South Africa where the players and the United Cricket Board are at loggerheads again.

Having initially reached an agreement over the impasse, the two parties were back to square one yesterday after the South African Players' Association refused to sign an agreement over sponsorship rights, claiming the UCB had changed the terms at the 11th hour.

UCB chief Gerald Majola has called a meeting in Cape Town today in an attempt to salvage South Africa's participation in the mini-World Cup, one of only two tournaments on the calendar that attracts all 10 test-playing nations.

The South African players' chief executive, Tony Irish, said UCB president Percy Sonn had returned from last weekend's ICC meeting in Dubai to communicate a "completely different position" from that which was agreed upon a week ago, sparking a new row.

"The proposal made by the UCB is unacceptable," Irish said. "The players are unable to sign it."

It was at the same ICC executive board meeting in Dubai that Sir John was reported to have called for India's suspension from the game - if their players refused to sign the agreements on time.

Jagmohan Dalmiya, the president of the Indian Board of Control, reportedly wrote letters to some of his dissenting players urging them to comply with the ICC stipulations and to sign the contracts.

He also told English reporters that the New Zealand board had initiated a motion to ban the Indian team from all international cricket if their players failed to toe the ICC line.

"When I pointed out that we should be served a notice before such an action, we were told that we should consider the [Dubai] meeting as the notice."

However, in a statement, Sir John said yesterday that there was no suggestion the Indian team should face sanctions, although it was a different matter when it came to individual players.

"At the meeting in Dubai at the weekend I gave notice that should the ICC Champions Trophy be jeopardised due to players not signing ICC player contracts, the ICC should at its next executive board meeting consider whether it is in a position to impose sanctions against the individual players until such time as those players have signed for future ICC events.

"There was no suggestion that the Indian team itself should be banned from international cricket."

Captain Sourav Ganguly and his team have been backed by 80 per cent of viewers in a poll held by a New Delhi television station.

They have refused to agree to clauses that prohibit them from endorsing products that conflict with the interests of the tournament's official sponsors for 30 days after the event ends. They have also rejected the clause which allows the official sponsors to use the players' images for six months after ICC events such as the Champions Trophy and the World Cup.