News just in via the Press Trust of India following the BCCI's Working Committee meeting in New Delhi on Monday.

The BCCI's draft annual report and audited accounts for 2004-05 were presented. If they have been made public I'd love to see a copy, but PTI reports that the Board will distribute Rs.52 crore (that's 520 million rupees to the uninitiated) to its cricketers.

That 520 million represents 26 per cent of the BCCI's gross earnings for 2004-05, which means they earned approximately 2000 million rupees. On current exchange rates, that approximates to $AU 60 million, $US 46 million, £UK 25 million, or €37 million Euros.

As a comparison:

• the ECB declared a pre-tax profit of £2.4 million for the year ended 31-12-04 ($US 4.3 million);
• Cricket Australia declared an operating surplus of $AU 38 million for the 2003-04 year ($US 29 million);
• New Zealand Cricket declared a surplus of $NZ 3.1 million for 2003-04 ($US 2.2 million);

The split of that Rs.52 crore is: 26 crore to international players, 21 crore to domestic players at senior level, and 5 crore to junior cricketers.

Some other noteworthy outcomes, as reported by PTI tonight, that I'll comment on:

• The BCCI still doesn't have a permanent Media Manager for the national team. An extraordinary state of affairs these days. The Board is going to, wait for it, form a committee to find one.
• The Working Committee ratified a proposal of the United Nations Development Program for the Indian and Pakistani teams to act as official spokespersons for the International Year of Sport and Physical Education. This is noble, and something I'll be watching with interest, but how realistic is this gesture, seeing that the IYSPE has just four and a half months to run?
• The Committee, has deferred, yet again, the proposal to merge the BCCI with the WCAI (Women's Cricket Association of India). According to BCCI president Ranbir Singh Mahendra, "We needed some clarification as regards to how it has been done in other countries." Err, why? How difficult a problem is this?

The BCCI's AGM is a coming attraction, September 22 and 23 in Kolkata.