The International Cricket Council today welcomed the opportunity to meet with the President of the Board of Control for Cricket in India, Mr Jagmohan Dalmiya and Indian cricketer, Anil Kumble, in Calcutta next week on the issue of player terms for the ICC Cricket World Cup 2003 (ICC CWC 2003).

ICC Chief Executive Officer, Malcolm Speed, confirmed that a member of the ICC's World Cup Contracts Committee, former Zimbabwean judge, Justice Ahmed Ebrahim and ICC General Manager - Cricket, David Richardson, will travel to India on Monday for an update from the BCCI and the players on their negotiations.

Mr Speed, said that the meeting would be another important step in finding a solution to the issue.

"Since the Champions Trophy, the ICC has been working on finding a way of ensuring that cricket's commercial partners are protected while also assisting the Boards to meet their commitments.

"Over recent weeks we have been able to hold several very constructive and reasonable discussions with our commercial partners and representatives of the players from most countries."

"These discussions have seen progress with many Boards on the key areas of the use of player attributes and the restrictions placed on players. They deal with the issues that were raised prior to the Champions Trophy."

In November the BCCI advised the ICC that it would take responsibility for handling the negotiations on these issues with its players and Mr Dalmiya has been leading these negotiations.

The meeting follows on from a letter to the BCCI from the ICC asking for an update on the progress of the negotiations between the BCCI and the Indian players.

"This meeting will allow the ICC to hear directly from the BCCI and Anil Kumble on how their discussions are proceeding," said Mr Speed.

"Hopefully during the meeting the BCCI will be able to indicate that it is now more confident of being able to meet its commitments to the ICC and to the other cricketing nations," said Mr Speed.

The meeting will be the first time that the ICC has been able to meet with a representative of the Indian players since its discussion with several members of the team in the lead-up to the ICC Champions Trophy

The lead-up to the Champions Trophy highlighted that while all Boards had given contractual undertakings to the ICC in early 2002 for the ICC CWC 2003 through their Participating Nations Agreements (PNA), some Boards were likely to have difficulty getting the agreement of their players to the Player Terms that were part of the PNA.

"The ICC remains committed to ensuring that the best players play in the ICC Cricket World Cup and to finding a pragmatic solution to this issue to allow this to happen," said Mr Speed.

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