BCCI steps up security for Twenty20

The Board of Control for Cricket in India has said that it will take measures to prevent bad crowd behaviour during the Twenty20 international between India and Australia at the Brabourne Stadium on Saturday.

“The BCCI has appointed chief administrative officer Professor Ratnakar Shetty to deal with the crowd-control issue and it will be done in consultation with the Mumbai police,” BCCI vice-president Lalit Modi was quoted as saying in PTI. “We can only persuade the crowd to control themselves but cannot make any arrests. All we can do is to eject people from the ground.”

Another BCCI vice-president Rajeev Shukla said that police personnel would be posted in various enclosures to prevent poor behaviour.

These measures follow the issue of Andrew Symonds being subjected to alleged racial abuse once again during the seventh ODI at the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai. An Australian photographer captured on camera certain spectators in the North Stand enacting monkey chants, a complaint that had been first made during the fifth one-dayer at Vadodara last week.

Crowd behaviour has embarrassed even host fans: Ponting

A livid Australian skipper Ricky Ponting has said continuous “racial abuse” directed towards all-rounder Andrew Symonds by the crowds during the one-day cricket series against India must have left even the host fans embarrassed.

“I am sure there will be a lot of embarrassed people around this country as well to know that this stuff has happened again at one of their cricket venues,” Ponting said after Australia won 7-match ODI series 4-2.

Ponting said he was hoping for better crowd behaviour during the Twenty20 match on Saturday.

“It is done now, hopefully in the Twenty20 match on Saturday it does not happen there” he said.

Ponting said he wanted an end to the hostilities and called on the spectators to behave during the tour finale at Brabourne stadium.

“Some of the other stuff that went on today (Wednesday) was totally unnecessary. I just hope that it does not happen again at another cricket venue that I play in because it leaves a bad taste in everybody’s mouth,” the skipper said.

Symonds has alleged that racial taunts have been directed at him in the last three one-dayers at Vadodara, Nagpur and here, a claim backed by match referee Chris Broad, who has mentioned the incidents in his report to the ICC.

Even during last night’s match here, four spectators were detained by the police for “misbehaviour”.

Symonds was booed when he came out to bat and it continued after he was out first ball. The man of the series was once again jeered by the crowd during the presentation ceremony.

PCB official visits India to study IPL structure

A Pakistan Cricket Board official will visit India to study the model of BCCI’s Indian Premier League (IPL), set to be launched next year.

PCB Director, Marketing and Communications, Ehsan Hameed Malik will attend a couple of presentations to be made by the IPL organisers in a bid to help the PCB launch its own league.

“We are planning to launch our own league as soon as possible and believe that a lot could be learnt from the IPL project,” Malik was quoted as saying by ‘The News’ on Thursday.

Malik, however, declined that Pakistan’s Twenty20 league would be a replica of the IPL.

“We will certainly incorporate some features already existing in the IPL, but our league will not be an exact copy of it. We will get a chance to make it a different yet successful event by following IPL,” he said.

The BCCI will host the IPL in April next year. The league will be a franchise-model where corporates and sponsors will be allowed to buy and run teams. Player buy-outs will be an added feature, something that cricket is not accustomed to.

The top four teams will make the semifinals with the winners contesting in the championship match of the event that will have a prize basket of USD three million.