New Delhi, Jan 12 (UNI) Days after being sacked by the Supreme Court from the post of secretary of BCCI, Ajay Shirke had triggered a fresh controversy saying the board was incapable to host the England team for the limited-overs series due to lack of funds with the state associations. In a telephonic conversations, the former BCCI secretary had allegedly asked the England and Wales Cricket Board's (ECB) president Giles Clarke to call of the tour citing several reasons after which a worried English cricket board president had asked BCCI CEO Rahul Johri about the certainty of the series. However, Johri intervened in the matter and assured Clarke that there was no threat over the ODI and T20 series. According to a report in cricinfo, Clarke in his letter to Johri had asked,"I have received calls from Mr Shirke who I understand is no longer the Honorary Secretary of BCCI. Can you please confirm to me that the England team will continue to be looked after by the BCCI in the usual fashion, with proper security, player daily allowance payments, hotel bills covered and the like, with transport organised at all times." "Obviously it is entirely a matter for BCCI where matches are played, but please advise soonest that the schedule will be adhered to, or any changes," he said.

   After the letter, the BCCI CEO assured the ECB that the series would go as per schedule and said,"The BCCI has announced the teams for the warm-up matches, the ODIs and the T20 matches, the ticket sales for which have kicked off with the first game sold out, as of last week." Interestingly, the venue of the first ODI between India and England is Pune, where Shirke was president of the Maharashtra Cricket Association (MCA) for more than nine years. Notably, the MCA officials have also said that tickets for the series opener has been sold out while Johri has also told the ECB chief that the remaining five venues have confirmed hosting their matches.

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