Tillekaratne Dilshan in pain after being hit by a delivery as Sanath Jayasuriya looks on, during the December 27 one-dayer at the Kotla

Calcutta: The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has lodged an appeal, challenging the 12-month ‘ban’ imposed by the International Cricket Council (ICC) on the Kotla.

The BCCI is understood to have disputed the ICC’s classification of the pitch used for the India-Sri Lanka ODI on December 27 last year as “dangerous and unfit”.

The one-day International had been called off after 23.3 overs, during which the Sri Lankan players received several blows due to the uneven bounce of the pitch.

The ICC, on Sunday, appointed Michael Beloff as the Appeals Commissioner to hear the BCCI’s plea against the ‘ban’ on the Kotla.

“The ICC today announced that the Honourable Michael Beloff QC has been appointed to hear the appeal of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) against the decision of the ICC’s general manager (cricket) and ICC’s chief referee that no international cricket would be played at the New Delhi ground until the end of December 2010,” an ICC statement said.

“The matter will now proceed in accordance with the ICC’s Pitch and Outfield Monitoring Process and no further statement will be issued until after the matter has been decided,” it said.

Chairman of the ICC Code of Conduct Commission, Beloff is an experienced sports lawyer and sits frequently as an arbitrator in the Court of Arbitration for Sport.

The ICC governing body earlier did not specifically use the word ‘ban’, but the ruling implied just that.

The ICC said in a statement that following the conclusion of a full investigation into the circumstances leading to the abandonment of the ODI on December 27 last year, it was confirmed that no international cricket would be played at the ground until the end of December 2010.

The release further stated: “In addition, the ICC pitch consultant will inspect the ground as soon as possible and oversee a programme of remedial work throughout 2010, designed to ensure the pitch returns to the standard required to host international cricket, in particular, matches in the ICC Cricket World Cup 2011, as planned.”

As per the BCCI’s rotation policy, the Kotla is not scheduled to host any international match this year.

Also, the fact that the Kotla will host the Delhi DareDevils’ home matches in the upcoming IPL-III will give the DDCA a chance to rebuild its image.

The Kotla is expected to host seven matches during the IPL in March-April. The one-year ban is on international matches, and the IPL, being a domestic tournament, is out of the global governing body’s purview.

The decision was taken by the ICC general manager (cricket), David Richardson and chief Match Referee Ranjan Madugalle, after considering all the evidence, including video footage of the match, and the Match Referee’s report and the submissions from the BCCI.

Richardson had said: “We understand that turf pitches, by their very nature, are not and cannot be expected to always behave predictably and that an occasional delivery of unexpected steep bounce, while not ideal, especially for limited-overs cricket, is part of the game.”

“In this instance, however, we are of the view that the frequency of the misbehaving deliveries (on average just more than one every three overs) — and the excessive degree of variation — had the potential to inflict serious injury on the batsmen and that therefore the pitch that was prepared for the above match was ‘dangerous’ and should therefore be classified as ‘unfit’.”

The BCCI had disbanded its grounds and pitches committee following the abandonment of the ODI.

All members of the grounds and pitches committee of the DDCA — chairman Chetan Chauhan, convenor Sunil Dev and curator Vijay Bahadur Mishra — had also resigned owning moral responsibility for the pitch fiasco.