Rediff

Mumbai, Aug 28: The International Cricket Council on Tuesday threw its weight behind the Board of Control for Cricket in India in the latter's stand-off with the Indian Cricket League, saying the BCCI is its "only recognised body" to administer the sport in India.

"BCCI is the only recognised body by the ICC to run official cricket in India. We have not got any application from the ICL [for recognition] yet, but we have already set a five-step process to decide on such issues," said ICC CEO Malcolm Speed at a media conference in Mumbai on Tuesday.

Describing the first four stages of the process, Speed finally said: "in the last stage we will be asking the applicants whether the member board of the country has approved it. If the answer is no we would not give it our recognition," Speed said at the news conference to announce the first list of ICC's 2007 annual awardees.

Speed said the first four steps in the process of approving a tournament by a private body were -- whether it's run for the development of the game or for charitable purpose; who were all playing in it and whether the players were all contracted to their parent boards; when and where they are to be played and whether anti-corruption measures are put in place to run the event.

After all these steps only "we will find out whether it has the approval of the member board," he emphasised.

He cited the example of a tournament planned last year in the US which was shot down by the ICC for not fulfilling the criteria he had mentioned.