The Board of Control For Cricket in India (BCCI) Friday requested the International Cricket Council (ICC) to let Indian wicketkeeper Mahendra Singh Dhoni wear the ‘Balidaan’ insignia on his gloves for the ICC World Cup 2019 matches after the governing body asked them to be removed, informed Indian media.
“The BCCI had already sent a formal request to the ICC for clearance. As per ICC regulations, players can’t sport any commercial, religious or military logo. There was nothing commercial or religious in this regard as we all know,” Committee of Administrators (CoA) chief Vinod Rai said.
“And it is not the paramilitary regimental dagger that is embossed in his gloves. So Dhoni is not in breach of ICC regulations,” he added.
Rai said that there has been a request to get it removed and not an instruction. “The BCCI CEO will be reaching there before the Australia game and will be speaking to the senior ICC officials. But in any case if they feel, we’ll take permission like we took in case of camouflage caps, because we believe in conforming to norms of the game. If the ICC has a set of norms, we’ll go with the norms.”
BCCI requests ICC to let Dhoni keep Indian Army symbol on gloves.
The army insignia ‘Balidaan Badge’ was seen on the wicket keeper’s gloves during India’s World Cup opener. “We have requested the BCCI to get it removed,” ICC’s Strategic Communications General Manager Claire Furlong told an Indian private media channel.
Former information minister Fawad Chaudhry and the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) demanded the cricket’s governing body to take action against the move.
The BCCI was slammed widely, earlier, for mixing politics with sports as Dhoni, who is an honorary lieutenant colonel in the Indian territorial army, had distributed the camouflage caps to the Indian team before their match against Australia.
The PCB taking strong notice of the move, urged the ICC to take action against the BCCI.
“We have strongly taken up the matter with the ICC,” PCB chairman Ehsan Mani told reporters in Karachi earlier this week. “There is absolutely no misunderstanding in the ICC about our position. We believe that cricket and sports should not be used for politics and we have said this very clearly. Their [India] credibility in the cricketing world has gone down very badly.”
