England and Australia cannot come to terms with India's growing importance in world cricket, according to Sunil Gavaskar, the chairman of the ICC's cricket committee. “Gone are the days when two countries, England and Australia, had the veto power in international cricket, even though the dinosaurs may not open their eyes and see the reality,” Gavaskar wrote in a newspaper column yesterday.

“The cricketing world has found that India has no longer a diffident voice but a confident one that knows what is good for its cricket, and will strive to get it,” the former India captain wrote. “What may have worried these people was the manner in which India defended Harbhajan Singh on the ‘racist' allegation made against him [in Australia in January]. When all the technology in the world was unable to prove that he had indeed said anything, these guys, especially those in Australia, were unable to stomach it.”

After Sharad Pawar, the president of the Indian cricket board, was awarded the ICC presidency for 2010, the shortlisting of Inderjit Bindra, his compatriot, as a possible successor to Malcolm Speed as ICC chief executive did not go down well with the British and Australian press, Gavaskar added.

“As soon as Mr Bindra's name was announced there were a flurry of articles in England and Australia that giving him the job would put too much power in India's hands,” he said. The ICC has selected Imtiaz Patel, of South Africa, as its preferred candidate to take over as chief executive.

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