Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly, Rahul Dravid and... play for the official team of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) and not the official team of India.
"If India plays England, it is a match played by the official team of BCCI and not the official team of India," BCCI counsel and senior advocate K K Venugopal said in the Supreme Court on Thursday.
This was stated before a five-judge Bench headed by Justice N Santosh Hegde by Venugopal in support of its stand that its activities, including the selection of the Indian team, has nothing to do with the Government of India.
"We do not even fly the national flag nor use any national emblem in the activities of the Board," he said.
To buttress his arguments, he said when the popular film "Devdas" was selected as an Indian entry into an international film festival, its selection had no official stamp of the Government of India.
Venugopal said India as a country was not represented at the International Cricket Council (ICC) and that the Board uses its own flag.