NEW DELHI (Reuters)
India reacted with mixed feelings on Saturday after a major spat between its cricket board and the International Cricket Council (ICC) which threatened England's three-Test tour of India was resolved.

National dailies led with stories of the Indian board's decision on Friday to drop banned batsman Virender Sehwag for the first Test at Mohali and the ICC accepting India's demand for a review of match referee Mike Denness's decisions during the second South Africa Test that sparked the controversy.

"Sehwag dropped in Mohali bargain, but Indian board gets its pound of flesh," blared the Hindustan Times, while The Tribune headlined its report "Sehwag out of Mohali Test, compensation promised."

A crisis that raged for 10 days and threatened a civil war in the game ended when the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) president Jagmohan Dalmiya announced that a solution had been reached with the ICC.

The ICC had ruled that Sehwag, given a one-match ban for dissent during the second South Africa Test, was ineligible to play in Mohali but a defiant Indian board selected him.

India and South Africa went ahead with their third game after Denness was dropped as referee, but the ICC stripped the Test of its official status.

The BCCI had argued the batsman was eligible to play the first Test against England because he sat out the third Test in South Africa.

Some newspapers said Sehwag has been sacrificed by the BCCI to solve the crisis.

"Sehwag sold in Test bazaar", The Asian Age declared, while the Statesman titled its story "Sehwag taken in by BCCI".

Former Indian Test stars were happy the crisis was resolved, but felt work needed to be done to prevent such controversies in the future and ensure match referees ruled uniformly.

"A very sensible move. One can't put the series [against England] in jeopardy," former Test offspinner Erapalli Prasanna told Reuters by phone from Bangalore.

Prasanna did not see the solution reached between the BCCI and the ICC as a triumph for the Indian board.

"It's a sort of yes and no. Both sides feel they have won. But cricket is the priority. So what happened is good," he said.

Test-cricketer-turned-politician Kirti Azad, who had raised the issue in the country's parliament last week, said the solution has averted any split among cricket-playing countries.

Azad, who had accused the world body of double-standards, said: "Nobody ever challenges a decision by the umpire or match referee. But there is no consistency. There should be a mechanism to straightaway go in for appeal on decisions by match referees," he told Reuters.

He said the BCCI's decision to pay Sehwag his match fees was no compensation for sitting out the Mohali game, but praised the BCCI for making the ICC agree to review Denness's decisions.

Prasanna said the crisis would force match referees exercise greater caution in making their decisions in future.

"It is a wake-up call to match referees, in exercising their powers. I hope the ICC gives referees a pep-talk, so that such incidents are not repeated," he added.

© Wisden CricInfo Ltd