Jagmohan Dalmiya, the president of the Board of COntrol for Cricket in India, has sent a letter to the Indian players detailing the discussions at ICC's executive-board meeting at Dubai over the weekend. The Indian board has asked the cricketers to decide by Monday morning if they want to participate in the Champions Trophy in Sri Lanka. In the letter, the BCCI has asked the players to accept the conditions of the contract for the time being, stating that their views "have been well received by ICC, and it would be befitting to respond positively". The letter confirmed that ICC was ready to discuss the contentious issue of player endorsements after the Champions Trophy, and before the end of October.

However, ICC rejected the Indian players' proposal of playing the tournament without signing the contract, while asking their sponsors to refrain from airing their advertisements for the duration of the Champions Trophy. ICC insisted that the cricketers needed to abide by the terms until 30 days after the event.

"It's now or never," said Dalmiya. "The ICC hasn't set any deadline, but we have to wrap this up quickly because there are a number of logistic issues that will come up if we are forced to send a different set of players. There is the question of getting new sets of clothing, and we have to also squeeze in a conditioning camp for the new players."

Dalmiya also revealed that the New Zealand board had initiated a motion to ban the Indian team from all international cricket if their players failed to toe the ICC line. "When I pointed out that we should be served a notice before such an action, we were told that we should consider the [Dubai] meeting as the notice."

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