BCCI softens stand on endorsements

Taking a conciliatory approach on the contentious endorsement issue, the Cricket Board today dropped clear hints that it would relax the ceiling on players' endorsement but fix a cap to ensure it does not affect their performance.

"The cap will be there of course but how much, that would be decided only after talking to the players," Rajeev Shukla, vice president, BCCI told reporters here.

Shukla also said that the BCCI was open to a "healthy dialogue" on the issue with players who have still not made any representation to the board.

After the World Cup debacle, the board's working committee announced a host of drastic measures, which included scrapping the graded contract system and limiting the number of endorsements for each player, steps that evoked sharp reactions from former cricketers.

It prompted the Indian captain Rahul Dravid to issue a statement where he proposed a "healthy dialogue" between the players and the BCCI to crease out the "irksome issues" of players' endorsements and contracts.

Defending the decision to curtail the players' endorsement, Shukla said, ''There was this widespread belief that it was affecting the players' performance. Even the former captains who were invited to the recent working committee meeting in Mumbai felt the same. That's why we decided to put a cap on that.