Young players feel sponsors influence selection: Pawar

NEW DELHI: The BCCI President Sharad Pawar on Friday underscored the sorry state of affairs in Indian cricket by disclosing that young players feel that sponsors were influencing the team selection and that there was a complaint that contract of one player was linked to the time he spent at the crease.

Pawar said the BCCI had received an "unofficial" complaint that a player's contract had a clause which provided for more incentives for more time he spent at the crease.

"It is an unofficial complaint and if found to be correct, the system needs to be strengthened. So I have asked the players to submit their copies of the old contract," Pawar said in a TV interview.

Asked whether the BCCI was targetting the players by preventing them from doing ads, Pawar said, "if 8-9 players sign a contract with X, Y, Z company, the companies want the players to be always in the team.

"There is a feeling like this amongst the younger players. A young player said this to me but for the sake of his future I will not talk much about this. I have asked some trusted people to look on this. There will not be an official investigation but we are looking into this."

On the contentious endorsement issue, Pawar said that the Board would be very flexible in handling the problem.

"There is no hard and fast rule on this. We are very flexible regarding this. We will speak to the players," he said.