NEW DELHI (AFP)
Former India captain Sunil Gavaskar has fired a new broadside at the "unbeatable whingers" of English cricket.

Writing in the Hindustan Times, Gavaskar said England missed a rare chance to discuss cricketing issues with International Cricket Council (ICC) president Malcolm Gray in New Zealand recently.

"The president took the opportunity of being in New Zealand to hold an ICC meeting to catch up with the England team. And guess what the team or its officials did? They whinged about my column," Gavaskar wrote in his regular column for the daily.

"Imagine that. Here's a rare chance to meet with the ICC top brass and apprise them about cricketing issues and they just confirm their unbeatable status as whingers."

Gavaskar had called England the "champion whingers of the world" after they squared their six-match one-day series with India early this month.

England coach Duncan Fletcher, who is originally from Zimbabwe, reacted angrily by questioning whether Gavaskar should be allowed to comment on another member country while serving as an ICC official.

Gavaskar wrote: "It is about time this canard that is being spread about a 'conflict of interests' between my media work and being on the ICC panel was nailed.

"Nothing that I do in the media, whether electronic or print, comes in the way of my work as the chairman of the ICC Cricket Committee. It is a committee that looks at the laws and playing conditions of the game in the main.

"I am not the only member of the committee. There are more than 10 others, a fair sprinkling of whom are doing media work, including Allan Border.

"There is, therefore, no way it's a conflict of interests, as was confirmed to me by the ICC chief executive Malcolm Speed. I would suggest the England coach perhaps check with the Australians, New Zealanders, West Indians, Pakistanis, Sri Lankans, Bangladeshis, South Africans and other Zimbabweans about my comments and about England's status as whingers.

"He will then realise that it is something the whole world has been saying for years, not just me. Who knows, before he was appointed coach, he might well have had the same views."

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