New Delhi, May 09: Keen to avoid a repeat of the controversy that almost derailed last year's World Cup, the Indian cricket board will safeguard the interests of the country's top cricketers when the ICC player contracts come up for review next year. Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, Virender Sehwag and Sourav Ganguly were among India's leading cricketers who initially refused to sign the contracts with the game's governing body, the ICC, ahead of 2003 World Cup in South Africa seeing a conflict between their personal endorsements and the interests of the event's sponsors. After considerable controversy they signed amended contracts and the World Cup went ahead. ICC's commercial partners, Global Cricket Corporation (GCC), right holders for ICC tournaments till 2007, has slapped a compensation claim of a whopping Rs 220 crores on the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) on the ground that the Indian players had not honoured their contractual obligations. But the BCCI sees no merit in the claim. Wiser by the happenings of last year, BCCI has decided to be more "cautious" when the ICC player contracts come up for review in 2005-06. "The board has to be cautious in future. It will do everything to protect the interests of the players. We cannot allow the same mistakes to be repeated," BCCI president Jagmohan Dalmiya said in an interview here.

The BCCI has made it clear that it was opposed to certain clauses in the existing contracts and indications are that the games' governing body may alter the contentious clause on personal endorsement during ICC events. "The Indian players have been affected by the clause on personal endorsements. It has put them in difficulty. It is difficult for others to realise the depth of the problem," Dalmiya said. "May be some players from Australia have such a problem, but other countries are not much affected," he said. "It is time that we find a new system, a system which does not conflict with the interest of the players. So that such disputes can be avoided," Dalmiya said. Top Indian cricketers had objected to certain restrictive clauses on personal endorsements in the contracts and agreed to take part in the champions trophy in Sri Lanka and the World Cup only after the apex body made some concessions. The players mainly opposed the ambush marketing and player images clauses in the participating nations' agreement, which arose from a USD 550 million rights deal signed by the ICC with GCC for its events upto the 2007 World Cup. Bureau Report