rich cricket board could lose up to $10 million in revenue following the scrapping of this month's tour of Pakistan, domestic media reported on Friday. “We will know the exact figure after the finance committee meeting, but it should be roughly around $10 million,” a Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) official told the Hindustan Times. The meeting, scheduled for later on Friday, would also discuss the financial impact of November's militant attacks in Mumbai, it said. The Indian government refused permission for the cricket team to tour Pakistan due to strained bilateral ties after blaming Islamist militants based in that country for the attacks which killed 179 people. India had been scheduled to play three Tests, five one-dayers and a Twenty20 international during that tour. The Pakistan board had said it could lose up to $20 million in revenue.Security concerns following the siege forced the last two games of a home one-day series against England to be scrapped and the inaugural Twenty20 Champions League, with $6 million in prize money, was also postponed. The BCCI treasurer M.P. Pandove told Reuters last month that security concerns and the global economic meltdown would be a “temporary setback” in the game's global commercial hub. Three arrested in Dhoni case Police said on Friday they had arrested three people in connection with alleged extortion letters sent to Indian cricket captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni. Security was beefed up outside Dhoni's family home in eastern India after a man claiming to be an associate of Dawood Ibrahim, the country's most wanted gangster, demanded Rs5 million ($102,000) from the cricket star in a letter on Monday. A second letter sent two days later threatened to blow up the house if police were asked for help. Police sent 45 commandos to keep watch. On Tuesday, Dhoni arrived in his hometown Ranchi in Jharkhand, one of country's poorest states, but has since left for Mumbai. “Three people have been arrested in connection with the extortion and threat letters written to Indian cricket captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni,” a state police official told Reuters. “We have interrogated more than seven people in connection with two letters.” Ibrahim is accused of masterminding the country's most deadly bombings in 1993, which killed at least 250 people in Mumbai. The underworld boss has eluded authorities for the past 15 years. Dhoni had already received extra security cover after Maoist rebels made death threats against him in 2007, police said. But he was unhappy with the arrangements and applied for government permission for his security team to carry more sophisticated weapons.
