Dalmiya and Bindra bury the hatchet

In a significant development for Indian cricket, Jagmohan Dalmiya and Inderjit Singh Bindra, once close collaborators, and later sworn enemies, have begun to reconcile their differences - or at least put them on the backburner - as manifested in the board's decision to appoint Bindra to the marketing committee.

In the recent working committee meeting of the board held in Trivandum in early June, Ranbir Singh Mahendra, the board president, was authorised to reconstitute the all-important marketing committee. And Bindra has been named as part of this committee, while interestingly N Srinivasan, who was the chairman of the marketing committee and also on the TV rights committee, has been dropped.

Srinivasan has recently come under fire for the role the TNCA played when court cases against the board were being filed by cricket clubs from Chennai. A slew of angry letters and faxes, containing strong words, has been exchanged between Mahendra and Srinivasan.

The marketing committee is one of the most high-powered organs of the board, and deals directly on all matters of revenue, including television rights, team sponsorship and individual series sponsorships.

Bindra is no stranger to the workings of this committee. He was the board president from 1993 to 1996, but had already dealt with television rights and the like, first during the Reliance World Cup held in India and Pakistan in 1987 and later on the board of PILCOM, the joint management committee of the Indian, Pakistani and Sri Lankan boards. He was also at the centre of the action during the Hero Cup in 1993, when the Indian board won a landmark case forcing Doordarshan to pay access fees for the rights to cricket played in India

However, in 1996, a tussle between Dalmiya and Bindra for the post of International Cricket Council precipitated a falling-out that had been brewing for some time. As a fall-out Bindra, who was president of the Punjab Cricket Association, was banned from attending any meeting of the board for a period of two years when he casted aspersions on the integrity of board officials at the height of the matchfixing scandal. Bindra's latest appointment marks a return to an active role in the board after a gap of almost 10 years.

But it is learned that all this has been set aside at the moment. In the recent working committee meeting Dalmiya made special mention of Bindra's knowledge of the workings of television rights and similar issues, and for his part Bindra too stated that he was happy to work for the board in any capacity. He stressed that he was always ready to do service for Indian cricket, and cited his decision not to contest his earlier ban as proof of this, according to a top board source.

Marketing committee Ranbir Singh Mahendra (Chairman), Rajiv Shukla, Chirayu Amin, Ranga Reddy, C.K. Khanna, Kamal Morarka (BCCI vice-presidents), Gautam Dasgupta (joint secretary), Jyoti Bajpai (treasurer), Jagmohan Dalmiya (immediate BCCI past President), Inder Singh Bindra and Arun Jaitley. As per convention the committee is convened by the BCCI secretary, SK Nair.