Dubai: The Supreme Court appointed a four-member panel to run the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), whose top officials have been rendered powerless and removed from their positions. Vinod Rai, a former Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India, Ramachandra Guha, a renowned historian and cricket writer, Diana Edulji, former Indian women’s team captain and Vikram Limaye, CEO and managing director of IDFC (Infrastructure Development Finance Corporation) will supervise the day-to-day operations of BCCI until the board hold fresh elections for office bearers as per the Lodha Committee’s recommendations.
The names suggested by the Supreme Court were received with cynicism by some of the cricket administrators, none of whom were ready to go on record.
Limaye, along with BCCI joint secretary Amitabh Choudhary, will now represent the BCCI at next month’s International Cricket Council meeting to be held in Dubai. The selection of Limaye, who has no cricket administration background to represent BCCI in ICC, has evoked criticism. It is understood that BCCI had suggested the name of former BCCI vice-president and IPL chairman Rajiv Shukla to attend the ICC meeting but did not get approved.
The four-member panel will now liaise with the BCCI’s chief executive office Rahul Johri.
Sixty-one-year-old Edulji will be the only player in the new administration. She had represented India in 30 Tests and 34 One Day Internationals between 1976 and 1993. She is the highest wicket-taker of the game among women cricketers with 120 wickets from international cricket, and many felt that the court could have picked former international cricketers like Mohinder Amarnath, Kapil Dev or Sunil Gavaskar as the player in the panel instead of Edulji.
The Supreme Court had removed BCCI President Anurag Thakur and Secretary Ajay Shirke on January 2 for obstructing the implementation of the reforms suggested by the Supreme Court-appointed RM Lodha panel. Rai was an able CAG but as cricket administration needs knowledge of cricket’s necessities, it would be a challenge for him.
Guha, who had written many books on cricket such as ‘Wickets in the East,’ ‘Spin and Other Turns’ and ‘The States of Indian Cricket’ — anecdotal histories, has indepth knowledge of the game.
Rai is among the 19 personalities who were named for the Padma Bhushan, the third highest civilian honour in India, on Republic Day this year. Though born in Ghazipur, Uttar Pradesh, he was a 1972 batch Kerala cadre officer of Indian Administrative Service (IAS) and started his career as the sub-collector of Kerala’s Thrissur District. Rai’s audit reports on the shoddy preparation of the Commonwealth Games and 2G scam had created ripples.
Incidentally, the Supreme Court declined to include the secretary of the sports ministry in the panel. The sports secretary’s name was proposed by Attorney General of India Mukul Rohatgi, who represented the BCCI’s institutional units — Railways, Services and the Universities.
The panel will now examine the extent of BCCI compliance with the recommendations of the Lodha panel. The BCCI and its affiliates have expressed reservations over restriction on the age of administrators (70-plus), tenure for holding office (no more than nine years at the BCCI and an additional nine years at state associations) and also opposed the one-state-one vote edict.
