Players contrats likely to be finalised by BCCI tomorrow

Bangalore, Jun 11 (UNI) The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) today expresed confidence of finalising the contract for players at the working committee meeting to be held in New Delhi tomorrow.

Emerging from a three hour meeting with senior national players, including Team India Captain Rahul Dravid, BCCI Treasurer N Srinivasan told waiting newsmen ''the meeting was fruitful''. ''We are hopeful of finalising the contract at the Working Committee tomorrow'' he added.

Sachin Tendulkar, Anil Kumble and Saurav Ganguly also participated. The Players, barring Ganguly were also present at the press conference.

The new contract offered to the Indian cricketers which had done away with the graded payment, drastically reduced the retainership allowance and put curbs on players' endorsements had not been accepted by the players while they had raised several contentious matters.

"The details of today's meeting will be presented at the Working Committee meeting tomorrow. There is no question of players demanding something and it is a purely internal matter and it is between the players and the Board. I cannot reveal what transpired in the meeting," Mr Srinivasan said answering a question.

Dravid commenting on the meeting said "We had a fruitful meeting with the members of the BCCI. We are hopeful of signing the contract soon," he said.

The Indian players have been without a contract since October one. The Board proposes to bring down the retainer amount to Rs five lakh to all players from a graded payment earlier. Earlier, seniors, coming under Grade A, were being paid Rs 50 lakh per annum, Grade B players Rs 35 lakh and Grade C players Rs 20 lakh.

The Board had proposed drastic pruning of retainership fee to Rs five lakh for all players, which has not gone down well with the players mainly the seniors who are also cut up with the Board for trying to restricted the number of their endorsements to three per player.

UNI