NEW DELHI: The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) will consider a proposal on Friday to ban Subhah Chandra-promoted Zee from bidding for any of its contracts on account of the latter’s alleged default on a telecast deal.

The board, which will have its annual general meeting, is likely to take up the issue and ban the network for 10 years from considering the Board’s any future contract, highly placed sources said.

Zee had earlier this year pulled out of a $219 million deal with BCCI for telecasting matches played in neutral venues following breakdown of price negotiations as the private channel was forced to share feeds with national broadcaster Doordarshan.

It was supposed telecast India’s matches played in neutral venues form 2006 to 2011.

When contacted Zee officials declined to comment.

Relationship between the two had deteriorated in the recent past to such an extent that Zee had floated its own Twenty 20 Indian Cricket League to rival BCCI and even managing to attract domestic and former international players to play in it.

BCCI on the other hand hit back by announcing that player associated with ICL would be banned for life and not considered to play for India ever again. It also floated its own Indian Premier League.

Tomorrow’s AGM of BCCI will also take up naming of Shashank Manohar, its vice-president, as its next president. He will take over from incumbent president Sharad Pawar in 2008.

The sources said usually the AGMs last for two days but this time around since there are no contentious issues it is will be over in a day.

NEW DELHI, Sept 27 (Reuters) - India paceman Zaheer Khan was promoted two rungs to the elite category in the Indian cricket board’s new central contracts announced on Thursday.

Left-armer Khan made a strong comeback after months on the sidelines late in 2006 and spearheaded the team to their first test series win in England for 21 years last month.

The board raised the retainer amounts and also introduced a fourth rung of 11 players, in an apparent bid to stop them from being roped in by an unapproved Twenty20 league planned to be launched in November.

The elite Grade A players will earn an annual retainer of six million rupees ($151,000) and the second-rung just over $100,000, followed by Grade C ($63,000) and Grade D ($38,000).

The board also said vice-president Shashank Manohar would succeed Sharad Pawar when he steps down as president next year.

Grade A: Rahul Dravid, Sachin Tendulkar, Saurav Ganguly, Anil Kumble, Yuvraj Singh, Mahendra Dhoni, Zaheer Khan

Grade B: Vangipurappu Laxman, Harbhajan Singh, Gautam Gambhir, Wasim Jaffer, Shanthakumaran Sreesanth, Dinesh Karthik, Rudra Pratap Singh, Virender Sehwag

Grade C: Irfan Pathan, Ajit Agarkar, Ramesh Powar, Munaf Patel, Robin Uthappa, Piyush Chawla, Suresh Raina

Grade D: Rohit Sharma, Joginder Sharma, Manoj Tiwari, Ishant Sharma, Ranadeb Bose, Mohammad Kaif, Cheteshwar Pujara, Parthiv Patel, Subramaniam Badrinath, Akash Chopra, Yusuf Pathan.

The BCCI may have stolen the thunder from the Indian Cricket League (ICL) by announcing its own Twenty20 League but Subhash Chandra, chief of Essel group bankrolling ICL, insists he is not intimidated by the board.

ICL created a flutter by roping in 50 domestic players, apart from some big names including Brian Lara and Inzamam-ul-haq, but BCCI retaliated by announcing the Indian Premier League (IPL) and Champions League, which would feature stalwarts like Shane Warne, Glenn Mcgrath and Stephen Fleming.

Chandra, however, is unfazed by the development and insists he is not cowered.

“We are not intimidated by the BCCI, don’t worry. We are not worried even,” he told a news channel.

Chandra confirmed that ICL has been pushed to November but insisted that the project was well on its course.

“A lot of progress has been made over the last four months. We were surprised by the public reaction and the media support. It was a tremendous response which we really did not expect.”

He also claimed that the common cricket loving people had spurned BCCI’S theory that ICL was just a commercial venture.

“We thought maybe some people would believe some of the BCCI guys who went about saying that ICL was just Subhash Chandra’s business, another commercial venture.

“But people responded by saying if ICL is commercial, so is BCCI. What is the difference?”

Chandra also felt that he would need to raise the stake in order to survive the tussle with BCCI.

“Ours is a USD 5 million tournament and I don’t think we need to raise the stake. We have recruited 80 young cricketers and 25 foreign players and they are known names.”

He also dismissed the notion that ICL was low on star presence.

“I think it’s the people who make stars, it’s not me or you. If they play well, they would emerge as stars.”