MUMBAI: The reputation of the Indian cricket board (BCCI) has been ruined by the freezing of its bank accounts, its president Anurag Thakur said on Tuesday, after a Supreme Court-appointed panel blocked it from making two payments to its state units.

The panel asked two banks to halt the disbursements after the board ignored some of the panel recommendations for reforming the world’s richest cricket board, which has been criticised for a perceived lack of transparency.

Thakur said the board would take a decision by the evening on the fate of the ongoing home series against New Zealand, which still has a Test and five one-dayers left.

“Without the funds how do we play? How can we function, how can we make payments to the players and the various stakeholders?” Thakur told Reuters on Tuesday.

“We don’t even take money from the government and it’s our own funds. Our accounts have been frozen without even communicating with us.

“Is this how you treat the world’s richest cricket body which has run the sport so efficiently? It has completely destroyed our hard-earned reputation.”

Published in Dawn October 5th, 2016