Former Australian cricketer Ian Chappell has slammed the Committee of Administrators (CoA) appointed by the Supreme Court of India accusing it of “road-blocking” the Day/Night Test in India.

The conflict between BCCI and CoA was like a black mark on the ‘game of fame’ cricket and it showed the true picture of cricket administration at present, Chappell wrote in Hindustan Times.

“The confusion surrounding the BCCI’s attempts to program its first Day/Night Test mirrors perfectly the state of cricket administration worldwide. The fact that cricket’s most prosperous – and therefore most powerful – administration, the BCCI, is beholden to a Committee of Administrators (CoA) is a black mark on the game,” Ian Chappell wrote.

“To then have the CoA overrule the BCCI’s attempts to play a Day/Night Test against the West Indies on the basis that any decision should include consultation with “the players, the administrators and the fans”, is even more damning. At a time when cricket needs clearheaded decision making and long-term planning, confusion seems to be the prevalent emotion. Consider the following. Test cricket is a game in dire need of nurturing and one solution is to play matches under lights. So far the Day/Night Test experiment has proved worthwhile but it needs the support of its biggest stakeholder. India’s current progress on programming a Day/Night Test appears to be more akin to ‘fiddling while Rome burns’,” he added.

Earlier, BCCI secretary Amitabh Choudhary had consulted with BCCI CEO Rahul Johri, acting President CK Khanna, treasurer Anirudh Chaudhary, ex-India wicketkeeper Saba Karim, head coach Ravi Shastri and operations manager Gaurav Saxena. However, CoA was not kept in the loop and it did not go down well with CoA chief Vinod Rai.

Rai had lashed out at the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) for proposing that the idea of the day-night Test match between India and West Indies in October without informing them.

“You seem to have discussed with all the stakeholders, who in your scheme of things constitute four persons sitting in the (BCCI) cricket centre — a very misplaced viewpoint. Even if it be cricket of which all of you certainly have greater knowledge than me, (I’m excluding Diana (Edulji, former India women’s team skipper), who has greater knowledge than all of you! I represent the viewing population. They are your greatest stakeholder,” Rai had said.