Harbhajan Singh during a practice session at Dambulla on Thursday. (AP)

Calcutta, July 28: Only a day remains before the first ball is bowled at Dambulla, but the telecast tussle between national broadcaster Doordarshan and private sports channel Ten Sports has entered the slog overs.

A Supreme Court bench of Justices Ashok Bhan and S.B. Sinha today stayed an order of Kerala High Court on a public interest litigation seeking a directive to telecast the tri- series in Sri Lanka on Doordarshan.

The apex court’s order came against a petition filed by Ten Sports, the exclusive rights holder to the series that features India and West Indies, besides the home team, seeking a transfer of the PIL hearing to the apex court.

The bench issued notices to P.S. Sudheesh and Dennis Austin, the petitioners, and fixed the matter for further hearing on August 8.

However, the court clarified that the stay of proceedings would not come in the way of Ten Sports and Prasar Bharati entering into an arrangement for the telecast.

“We have asked Ten Sports to come and negotiate,” said Navin Kumar, director-general of Prasar Bharati, which manages Doordarshan, on being asked what the national broadcaster intends to do.

Kumar also clarified that Ten Sports’s offer of providing the telecast only to non-cable areas through low-power transmitters was “not on”.

According to Ten Sports sources, the channel is not willing to budge from its stand either. “We are sticking to the proposal we gave Doordarshan,” a channel official said.

Kerala High Court, where the PIL was listed for hearing today, adjourned the petition following the Supreme Court stay order.

In the apex court today, Ten Sports contended that such PILs were “set up” by Doordarshan itself and pointed out that this was the third time since the 2004 Australia series that a PIL was filed at the last minute over telecast of cricket matches.

“Every time before the commencement of a cricket series involving India, a PIL is filed in one or the other high court in India for direction for simulcast,” said Harish Salve, the senior counsel for the Dubai-based sports broadcaster.

He also told the Supreme Court that the tender process for the rights was on for over one year during which Prasar Bharati had kept quiet.

They have suddenly “woken up” to write to Ten Sports a proposal, which need not be even considered by the sports channel, Salve said.