BCCI website offline, up for bids

Website registrars register.com and namejet.com have put the domain name up for public bidding, receiving seven bids so far with the highest of USD 270.

The BCCI website is an important source of live scores across age categories besides putting up key documents regarding the functioning of the board.

In a major embarrassment to all the stakeholders of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), its web services were suspended for well over 18 hours due to failure in renewing the domain name. From the start of Sunday,  register.com  – from whom former IPL chairman Lalit Modi had purchased the title ' bcci.tv ' – suspended the BCCI website since the payment for renewal had not been processed. Sportstar understands that the email operations, which too had been suspended, have been restored after the payment was processed early on Sunday and the website was gradually being restored on various operating systems.

A screenshot of the dysfunctional BCCI website; the domain was valid from 2-2-2006 to 2-2-2019.

It is understood that the chief executive Rahul Johri, who would receive a lot of flak for the operational disaster – has sought explanation from the operations department. Modi, who is banned for life by BCCI since 2010, had bought the domain name in 2008. Since the former administrator had not transferred the intellectual property to the BCCI, the BCCI had filed a case against him in 2013. While the case is pending in the Bombay High Court, the high court had asked Modi's lawyers in 2014 to give an undertaking of co-operating on all operational fronts until a judgmenet had been passed.

Since then, for the first time has the tumultous relationship resulted in the BCCI losing face in public.