GOTCHA! (From left) Adam Gilchrist, Andrew Symonds and Stuart Clark celebrate Rahul Dravid’s dismissal in Perth on Wednesday. (AP)

New Delhi, Jan. 16: The BCCI has a choice: drop the Australia tour or the “I” in its name.

A public interest litigation filed in the Supreme Court today said the Board of Control for Cricket in India should stop using the word “India” if it doesn’t recall Anil Kumble and his boys and defend the country’s honour in the race row with Australia.

The “lazy” and “ignorant” board, Lucknow-based lawyer Prince Lenin said, should “discontinue” the tour because the Australian cricket board had “humiliated” the nation in front of the entire world.

The court has set January 28 for the hearing.

If Lenin finally has his way, the irony wouldn’t surely be lost on the BCCI czars.

Sometime back, in the thick of a telecast rights battle with a channel, the board had claimed it was a private, autonomous body, with no links with the government, either administrative or financial.

Lenin’s PIL also sought to prevent the board from organising or taking part in any tournament under the name “India”.

Those who were not “concerned” with the game or had “not contributed” to it, the petition added, should be barred from contesting as office-bearers of any sports body.

The PIL said the board had become the richest sports body in the country because of the “love” and “affection” of the people.

But on the current tour, the BCCI has been a mere spectator to the “unsporting acts” of the Australian players, the umpiring mistakes and the damage caused to the “spirit” of the game and has not withdrawn for “fear” of losing a few crores.

No person, the petition argued, could be allowed to make money at the cost of the nation’s honour.

The BCCI, it said, had failed to “protect and defend the respect, pride and dignity” of the country, which “rests with the players”, and so “no more deserves to represent the Tricolour at any level”.