Siva a stand by for Gavaskar

L Sivaramakrishnan has been kept as standby for Sunil Gavaskar in the panel of commentators for the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI). Should Gavaskar fail the `conflict’ test, Sivaramakrishnan may take his place in the four-member panel that has been decided for the home international matches.The others are Sanjay Manjrekar, Murali Kartik and Harsha Bhogle.

During a meeting between the office-bearers and the Committee of Administrators (CoA) in Delhi, it was decided that no BCCI-contracted commentators should be conflicted. In this context, Gavaskar’s name came up for discussion as former CoA member Ramchandra Guha had objected to Gavaskar’s multiple hats.

“Sunil Gavaskar is the head of a company, which represents Indian cricketers while commenting on those cricketers as part of the BCCI TV commentary panel. This is a clear conflict of interest. Either he must step downwithdraw himself from PMG completely or stop being a commentator for BCCI,“ Guha had said while resigning from the CoA.

Gavaskar now will have to sign an undertaking outlining his role in the Professional Management Group (PMG) which also manage players. “We have discussed the names but it has not been finalised.We need to look into the Conflict of Interest rules properly. We still don’t know who’s having what interest,“ Diana Edulji told media persons after the meeting.