New Delhi: Legendary batsman Sunil Gavaskar on Tuesday backed former national team captain Saurav Ganguly to take over as interim president of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI).

The BCCI is currently undergoing an administrative crisis following the sacking of president Anurag Thakur and secretary Ajay Shirke by the Supreme Court.

Both Thakur and Shirke were on Monday removed from their posts for their failure to implement the Justice R.M. Lodha committee’s recommendations in running the board.

Following the duo’s ouster, various names have cropped up to take over the reigns of the national cricket board.

Since the sacking of the duo, many names including that of Ganguly — the current Cricket Association of Bengal (CAB) President — have been doing the rounds to succeed Thakur on an interim basis.

Ganguly also fits the bill as the Lodha Committee, in its initial recommendations, had stressed that former players should administer the BCCI.

“BCCI has got very good bench strength to take up the bigger roles and one name that comes to my mind is Sourav Ganguly,” Gavaskar was quoted as saying by NDTV news channel.

“Remember, in 1999-2000, when Indian cricket was gripped by the match-fixing saga, Ganguly was given the Indian team captaincy and he turned it around,” the diminutive former opener added.

In Kolkata, Ganguly calmed talk about him taking over as the BCCI President, saying “it’s too early” to draw any such conclusions.

“It’s better not to take my name. There is no reason to take my name. It’s too early,” Ganguly told reporters. Ganguly, who is currently the Cricket Association of Bengal (CAB) President said nobody has got any choice but to implement the Lodha Committee recommendations in toto.

“We have got no choice. Nobody has a choice but to implement them,” said Ganguly, who took over the top post of the CAB after predecessor Jagmohan Dalmiya’s demise in 2015.

A bench of chief justice T.S. Thakur, justice A.M. Khanwilkar and justice D.Y. Chandrachud in their order said that as an interim arrangement, the seniormost vice-president of the BCCI would act as the president and the joint secretary would be the secretary.

Ganguly, however, is not a vice-president and would even complete a three-year tenure in office in CAB and hence could be ineligible for the post.

Meanwhile, the national cricket selection panel is set to shrink in the wake of Supreme Court’s order to implement the Lodha Committee reforms and both Gagan Khoda and Jatin Paranjpe will have to leave as they don’t conform to the set norms. As per Lodha reforms, senior selection committee was supposed to be a three-member team with Test players.

Therefore, it will be MSK Prasad, Devang Gandhi and Sarandeep Singh — all former Test players who would be selecting the upcoming team for the ODIs and T20s against England. The selection will be done on January 5.

As per Lodha Committee norms, the senior selection committee of the BCCI should comprise only Test cricketers and Khoda with two ODIs and Paranjpe with 4 ODIs, don’t conform with the rules set by the SC-appointed committee and now passed as verdict.

“I will have to check what will be the new rules. Normally, the secretary is the convener of the senior team. In his absence, the joint secretary convenes the meeting,” joint secretary Amitabh Chaudhary said.