BCCI to pay 200,000 dollar to ICC for fourth Champions Trophy centre

Mumbai, Apr 9 (UNI) The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) today agreed in its working committee meeting here, to pay around 200,000 dollars to the International Cricket Council in exchange for increasing the staging centres from three to four of this year's Champions Trophy.

BCCI president Sharad Pawar, while speaking to reporters after the meeting said, the Board had turned down ICC's demand for payment of USD one million and got it scaled down to around 200,000 dollars (approx Rs 90 lakh).

''The charges have been scaled down considerably from the earlier one million to less than 200,000 dollars to be given to the ICC,'' he further said.

Pawar also informed that the BCCI was keen on adding Chennai and Bangalore too but it was not accepted by ICC because of the weather conditions expected in these centres around that time.

On Kolkata, Mr Pawar replied that ''The Cricket Association of Bengal was not interested in organising any matches.'' Matches of the Champions Trophy featuring the ten Test playing nations will be held at four centres -- Cricket Club of India in Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Jaipur and Mohali.

BCCI Treasurer N Srinivasan said: ''It (the amount) is in the final stages of acceptance along with other minor matters regarding tickets to ICC's sponsors, termed as one of the two points of contention by Mani recently in Goa''.

The ICC Champions Trophy tournament, to be hosted by India in October-November, will be formally launched on April 27 at a ceremony in New Delhi.

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