I Won't Dump The Team, Says Srinivasan

For the second time in a little over a month, the Indian cricket board refused to discuss the abysmal performance of the national team on its just-concluded winless tour of England, with new president N Srinivasan reposing full faith in the players.

Officials who attended the 82nd BCCI annual general body meeting said that no one uttered a word on the team that failed to register a single win.

"Not at all. No one said anything on India's performance during the two-hour meeting," one of them said on condition of anonymity.

Even on August 15, by which time India had lost three of the four Tests, all the officials who attended a working committee meeting maintained a deafening silence.

"They were the toast of India till two months ago, after they won the 50-over World Cup in April. You win some, you lose some. A number of factors led to the defeats, like injuries to some players and bad luck (rains and error-prone technology)," Srinivasan told Mail Today.

"I am not going to dump the team just after one bad series." Mahendra Singh Dhoni's team failed to win a single Test, One-Day International or the lone Twenty20 International.

A spate of injuries, fatigue, and rain were the main factors that led to the 0-4 whitewash in the Test series, the 0-3 defeat in the ODI series as well as the T20 International. Earlier in the day, addressing his first press conference as BCCI president, Srinivasan told reporters: "We didn't have our best team from the beginning. We have faith in the team. There's no reason why we can't get back there (No. 1 spot). We have not formed any committee (for a post-mortem)."

Srinivasan, however, said that the BCCI would complain to the ICC about Hot Spot technology.

"We were extremely reluctant to implement the DRS (umpires' Decision Review System) and had no belief in the ball tracking system. The BCCI is not averse to technology and agreed to a minimum usage of DRS, including HotSpot, at the last ICC meeting in Hong Kong," he said.

"We were under the impression that HotSpot was very good. It's not necessary for me to dwell on the accuracy of HotSpot; it was there for everybody to see."

Rahul Dravid was once given out caught after the review, even though HotSpot showed the ball hadn't touched his bat. There were other instances when Indians, including VVS Laxman, were at the receiving end of the errorprone technology.

"The BCCI will raise this issue at the next ICC meeting. We want to revisit it as we feel HotSpot is insufficient technology and, therefore, we would request that it be revised," said Srinivasan, who will now sit on the ICC executive board that takes the final call on all decisions.

"At the last meeting, Mr (Shashank) Manohar had opposed the DRS before laying down office and at the next meeting I will do it." A new set of office bearers formally took over at the AGM that was reduced from a two-day affair to one after the 14-point agenda was gone through quickly.

Mohinder Amarnath replaced Yashpal Sharma as the north zone representative for the lone change on the senior selection panel. The junior panel remained unchanged. Gargi Banerjee will replace Vrinda Bhagat as head of the five-member women's selection panel, which saw two changes.

On the Indian team boycotting the ICC annual awards function in London recently, Srinivasan clarified that both Manohar and he got the ICC invitations, but not the team. "Neither of us could go as we were busy. But no specific invitation had gone to the team. Later on, an ICC team went to Lord's to invite the players on September 11, but by then, the players had made their plans (for the day)," he said.

Asked about the resumption of bilateral cricket ties between India and Pakistan, Srinivasan said as of now there was nothing on the table. A top Pakistan board official said in Lahore on Monday that they were eager to meet BCCI officials in this regard.

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