AZHAR FELICITATED

Javed Ali, SQUARE CUT, YaHind Sports

Mohammed Azharuddin, the former Indian Captain was felicitated alongwith 16 other captains who had led India in the past, and For their service to Indian Cricket. Paying no heed to the displeasure of top officials of the International Cricket Council, the Board of Control for Cricket in India Invited Azhar and conferred him, the ceremony was attended by former greats, Mansur Ali Khan Pataudi (Tiger), Bishen Singh Bedi, Sunil Gavaskar, Krishnamachari Srikanth, Dilip Vengsarkar, Ravi Shastri and from the current lot Sachin Tendulkar and Rahul Dravid, the notable absentees were Kapil Dev and Sourav Ganguly. ICC officials earlier expressed their displeasure at the Indian board’s decision to honor Azharuddin, and its Chief Executive Malcolm Speed expressed reservations about attending the ceremony, the ICC insists it has “zero tolerance for corruption In cricket.”. Azhar is currently serving a life-ban for his role in a match-fixing scandal six years ago, he was barred from cricket in the year 2000 for conspiring with illegal bookmakers to fix matches and player performances. The turning point to the match fixing scandal is the revocation of Pakistan’s pacer Ata ur Rehman life-ban by the ICC, hence this Could be seen as a horizon to Azhar’s case. Talking to The Associated Press Azharuddin said “it is too early for me to decide”, he had not yet appealed to the ICC for revocation of his ban, even though several Indian board officials recently made statements saying he had already suffered enough. The Indian Cricket board has so far refused to allow Azharuddin a post-retirement pension that is paid to all former players. He was not invited to the board’s 75th Anniversary celebration in Calcutta a few years ago. - Yahind Sports (with input/Super cricket)