The Board of Control for Cricket in India will decide on Saturday whether to accept the proposal for inclusion of the willow sport at the Commonwealth Games, to be held in 2010 in New Delhi, after a gap of 12 years.
The BCCI's working committee, which will meet in Mumbai on Saturday, will discuss the issue and decide whether cricket will be a medal sport at the next CWG after having made its debut in 1998 at Kuala Lumpur, a Board source said.
"[BCCI president Sharad] Pawar had met the Commonwealth Games Federation chief [Michael Fennell] along with Arun Jaitley last month and a letter has been received proposing cricket's inclusion in the 2010 Commonwealth Games at Delhi. The matter is to be taken up at the meeting," the source said.
After its debut in Malaysia in 1998, cricket was not part of the 2002 and 2006 Commonwealth Games in Manchester and Melbourne respectively but may return in 2010 if the BCCI accepts the proposal.
However, it is not clear whether any discussion will be held at the meeting over Pawar's likely nomination to succeed Percy Sonn as the next President of the International Cricket Council though BCCI secretary Niranjan Shah had indicated this would be discussed at the meeting, the source said.
"It's not listed on the agenda," the source said.
Pawar has received support from the three other South Asian cricket boards -- Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh -- to succeed South Africa's Sonn, who had taken over the reins of the ICC earlier this year -- as the next chief of the world body.
But Pawar has been non-committal on the issue saying it is too early to talk about as Sonn has a three-year term to run, though the deadline for submitting the nominations to the ICC for the South African's successor is January 1, 2007.
The working committee will also discuss and ratify the decisions taken at the meeting of the finance committee, headed by Sudhir Nanavati, to be held tomorrow, the source said.
The tour programmes and fixtures committee's decision on allotment of matches to different centres during the forthcoming one-day international series against the West Indies and Sri Lanka, will also be taken up for ratification.
Nagpur (January 21), Cuttack (January 24), Chennai (January 27) and Vadodara (January 30) have been allotted matches in the best-of-four series against the West Indies while the ODIs against Sri Lanka are to be held at Pune (February 8), Rajkot (February 11), Goa (February 14) and Vishakhapatnam (February 17).
The decisions taken at the umpires' sub-committee meeting held earlier this week, including the recommended punishment for dereliction of duties by not allotting any more matches this season to match referee Sambaran Banerjee and Mumbai umpire Sameer Bandekar, will also be discussed.
The report and recommendations of the National Cricket Academy, which met in Mumbai on Monday, are also to be put up for ratification, the source added.
