Ian Chappell hits out at BCCI for muzzling commentators over DRS

Melbourne: Former Australian skipper Ian Chappell has slammed Indian Cricket Board for "muzzling" commentators over the controversial DRS and said he won`t be working under the terms of BCCI during the seven-match ODI series between India and Australia starting Sunday.

The Indian Cricket Board has laid down three topics and one of it bars the commentators to not speak a word about the DRS. The BCCI has asked the commentators of its production unit such as Sunil Gavaskar, Ravi Shastri, Laxman Sivaramakrishnan and Matthew Hayden to not utter a word on DRS, Indian selection and administration. Commentators working for Star Sports, including Harsha Bhogle, Sourav Ganguly and Shane Warne, are also subject to BCCI restrictions. A stalwart of Channel Nine`s commentary team, Ian Chappell, himself, feels DRS as a "load of rubbish" but he said he will not work under the terms of the BCCI. "I can`t do my job properly under those circumstances," Chappell was quoted as saying in the Sydney Morning Herald. "In the studio for Nine (during the Ashes), I made a number of comments about the DRS and what a load of rubbish I thought it was. "I`m even more convinced of that after the Ashes. I know that the Indian players, Tendulkar in particular but I think there`s probably more than that, don`t trust it. I think Jacques Kallis is on record as saying he doesn`t trust it, and from my experience I don`t trust it, either." The 70-year-old also questioned whether television umpires were trained enough to use video technology. "Administrators say to players, `Do you want more technology?` What they don`t explain to the players is there`s a human hand in there that is subject to the same thing as an umpire`s decision - human error," he said. The report mentioned that former India cricketer and commenter Sanjay Manjrekar was dropped from the Indian production`s world feed because he questioned the board`s respect for the Future Tours Program. Chappell said it was disgraceful that Indian commentators were gagged from expressing their views when the IPL spot-fixing controversy erupted and it is better to sack them than muzzling them. "If you don`t like what I`m saying on television, sack me," Chappell said. "You`re short-changing the public, and you`ve got your own credibility to consider." PTI