Saturday, November 24, 2001 CALCUTTA (Reuters)
India's cricket board will try to sort out its row with the International Cricket Council (ICC) in a "sporting manner", board president Jagmohan Dalmiya has said.

"We have to see how we can get back to the game. Controversies will not help cricket. We will work out the issue with the ICC, we are a family," he told a news conference.

India and South Africa started an unofficial test on Friday after the ICC refused to recognise the game when South Africa barred referee Mike Denness over a ball-tampering controversy.

Denness, a former England captain, had found Sachin Tendulkar guilty of tampering with the ball and slapped a one-match suspended ban on him and penalised five other players.

India had asked the ICC to replace Denness for the Centurion match but the sport's governing body turned down the request on Wednesday.

Dalmiya said the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) would write to the ICC about the issue soon.

"We will discuss the issue with the ICC and find a solution that is acceptable to all parties...let the dust settle."

But Dalmiya said he firmly stood by the Indian and South African board's decision to go ahead with the match in Centurion without Denness.

"I personally feel people all over the world are happy that the cricket is on," he said.

"We have not caused a fight for the sake of causing it. You know what the public opinion was in the country, you know the sentiment."

India was enraged by Denness's disciplinary and there have been calls to pull out of the South Africa tour from the media and India's parliament.

Dalmiya said as far as the Indian and South African boards were concerned the current match was official.

"Both the board think this satisfies all the parameters of a test match. We feel it has got the official status.

"As a member of the ICC, if we thought some corrective measures were needed that the top officials of ICC were not providing, we supplemented and complemented certain requirements through our action," he said.

The BCCI is expected to discuss the issue further in a working committee meeting in New Delhi on Monday.

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