Azharuddin was banned for life by BCCI in 2000 for his role in a match-fixing scandal.
Veteran India batsman Gautam Gambhir has slammed the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), Committee of Administrators (CoA) and the Cricket Association of Bengal (CAB) after former India captain Mohammad Azharuddin rang the Eden Gardens bell to announce the start of the first T20I between India and West Indies on Sunday.
Gambhir, 37, took to social media site Twitter to share his displeasure. He wrote, "India may have won today at Eden but I am sorry @bcci, CoA &CAB lost. Looks like the No Tolerance Policy against Corrupt takes a leave on Sundays! I know he was allowed to contest HCA polls but then this is shocking….The bell is ringing, hope the powers that be are listening," Gambhir tweeted on Sunday night.
Azharuddin was banned for life by BCCI in 2000 for his role in a match-fixing scandal. The case was handled by India's CBI, which concluded that Azharuddin was involved in match-fixing. But the ban was lifted in 2012 by the Andhra Pradesh High Court.
Former player and commentator Sanjay Manjrekar also tweeted without taking Azharuddin's name: "Guess the time has come for all of us to reacquaint ourselves with one of the most crucial documents on Indian cricket."
The former middle-order batsman played 99 Test and 334 ODI matches for India, scoring 6215 and 9378 runs respectively.
Interestingly, the honour to ring the bell was accorded to Azharuddin a week after CAB president Sourav Ganguly wrote an emotional letter to the BCCI revealing his "fear and worry" at how Indian cricket is being run.
It has become customary to ring a bell at the start of a cricket match.