Several leading Indian players might be missing from next month's ICC Champions Trophy as the row over endorsements escalated.

The problem stems from a ruling by the International Cricket Conference that all players have to sign a contract preventing them endorsing products which clash with the official tournament sponsors. Some of the Indian squad, including Sourav Ganguly and Sachin Tendulkar, are unhappy at being asked to do this and the Indian cricket board (BCCI) have had to delay naming their squad as talks continue.

Niranjan Shah, secretary of the BCCI, admitted that if no settlement is reached then the players in dispute will be left out. "We are a part of the ICC," Shah told the Times of India, "we don't want to confront them." He added that it was not only the Indian players who were unhappy: "They are not the only ones who have not signed the contract. There are others also who have raised objections to the ICC contract,"

The contract prevents team and player endorsements by companies in the same line of business as ICC's sponsors for major events, which will also include next year's World Cup. The ICC had imposed a deadline of August 12 for the contracts to be signed but Shah said that he had heard that it had been extended until Friday (August 16) : "We are talking to the ICC on a day-to-day basis, we are also talking to the players."

India (probable) Sourav Ganguly (capt), Dinesh Mongia, Virender Sehwag, Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, Yuvraj Singh, Mohammad Kaif, Harbhajan Singh, Anil Kumble, Zaheer Khan, Ajit Agarkar, Ashish Nehra, Parthiv Patel, Ajay Ratra, VVS Laxman, Murali Kartik, Jai Prakash Yadav, Sanjay Bangar, Lakshmipathy Balaji, Tinu Yohannan.

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