Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid give nod for Team India's participation in Champions Trophy

New Delhi: Echoing Supreme Court-appointed Committee of Administrators' urge to BCCI for announcing Team India squad for upcoming Champions Trophy, former greats of Indian cricket, Sachin Tendulkar and Rahul Dravid have also been affirmative when asked whether the team should participate in the mega event.

ESPNCricinfo contacted a bunch of former cricketers - Tendulkar, Dravid, Zaheer Khan, Gundappa Viswanath, Sandeep Patil, Sanjay Manjrekar, Aakash Chopra, Ajit Agarkar, Venkatesh Prasad, Saba Karim, Murali Kartik, and Deep Dasgupta – and all of them unanimous in their opinion that India should attempt to defend the Champions Trophy title that they won in 2013, stated the report.

The doubt over India's participation in prestigious tournament arose after the Indian board missed the April 25 deadline to announce squad for the tournament, saying the delay was due to "operational" reasons and not because of the ongoing tussle between ICC and BCCI.

Subsequently, the BCCI was outvoted by a massive margin at the ICC Board meeting, set up for the approval of new constitution, governance structure and finance model.

Some reports also suggested that a faction of BCCI members were strongly in favour of revoking the Members Participation Agreement (MPA) with the ICC, which would rule India out of hosting and participating in all ICC tournaments for the next eight years, which is the end of the present rights cycle.