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ICC clears Chauhan, again!

The International Cricket Council has, yet again, cleared Indian off spinner Rajesh Chauhan and freed him to resume his international career.

BCCI secretary J Y Lele announced in Bombay on Wednesday that he had received the clearance direct from the ICC's administrative secretary.

Lele arrived in Bombay this morning, straight from London where he attended the two-day ICC annual general body meeting.

Lele said he was unable to finalise Pakistan's tour itinerary, nor could be work towards organising tours by other countries or even India's own tours abroad -- this, despite staying a week in London, where the secretaries of all other Test-playing nations were present as well.

The mystery of Rajesh Chauhan meanwhile continues. The Indian offie's action first came under a cloud after the then England captain Graham Gooch complained, following his team's 3-0 rout in 1993.

Then, in late 1996, the ICC reviewed videotapes of his action, and temporarily halted the off spinner's career.

The BCCI had former India skipper Sunil Gavaskar and member of the ICC technical committee Kapil Dev examine his action. Following a clean chit from the two former stars, Lele himself announced that the ICC had verbally cleared the offie for Test duty.

Then came the series, late 1997, at home against Sri Lanka. And again, came the doubts, this time courtesy ICC match referee Bobby Simpson.

Simpson indicated that the umpires who stood in that series had complained about Chauhan. However, former Test off spinner Venkatraghavan, one of the umpires concerned, later indicated that he saw no problems.

Ahead of the home series against Australia, Chauhan was cleared, with Lele again saying that he had attended Fred Titmus' bowling school in London and that he had been cleared after that stint. A Test later, the doubts cropped up again and Chauhan was dumped once more, while the ICC "made up its mind".

Well, it apparently has, now.

The BCCI, however, has no intention of taking up the case strongly, and demanding an explanation from the ICC for its now-hot, now-cold stand on the subject. Nor does it have any explanation of how it plans to compensate the much maligned off spinner for missing so many games, both Test and ODI, in the recent past for no fault of his own.

Meanwhile, India, Pakistan and Canada have been unable to fix fresh dates for this year's edition of the Sahara Cup one-day series to be played at Toronto.

The BCCI had assured the Indian Olympic Association and the organisers of the Commonwealth Games that it would send the best possible team for this year's Games at Kuala Lumpur, since for the first time cricket is to be played as a medal sport.

The Games, however, are to be played from September 11 to 21 -- almost the same dates scheduled for the Sahara Cup.

Lele was hoping to settle the issue during the ICC meeting, but reported that the talks have ended in stalemate.

As always, he was not too forthcoming when asked to explain what the main hurdle towards a resolution of the problem was.

Earlier Report:
Chauhan still under ICC scrutiny
Chauhan cleared