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Chauhan's D-Day set for Tuesday

Secretary to the Board of Control for Cricket in India Jaywant Lele said in Bombay on Saturday that he had seen the videotape of off spinner Rajesh Chauhan's action, sent by the ICC with the accompanying directive that the offie not be picked for the national side till his "suspect action" was cleared, and indicated that he found nothing amiss.

Lele, for the record, is qualified as an umpire.

However, Lele said, the final word on the subject will be spoken on Tuesday, when the BCCI's technical committee chaired by Sunil Gavaskar meets to evaluate the tape. Chairman of the national selection committee Ramakant Desai has been invited for the crucial meeting.

Chauhan's action, as also those of Kumara Dharmasena, Muthaiah Muralitharan and Jayanta Silva, were referred to the ICC technical committee by Bobby Simpson, match referee during the recent India-Sri Lanka Test series.

The ICC committee subsequently cleared Murali (who, interestingly, has been actually called in a Test) and Silva, but indicated to the respective boards that Chauhan's action, and that of Dharmasena, were suspect.

India dropped Chauhan from the squad for the Dhaka tri-series, but Sri Lanka picked Dharmasena for the ongoing one day series against Zimbabwe and, interestingly, in the first game, Dharmasena returned impressive figures of 10-0-29-2, and was not called by the officiating umpires.