N Srinivasan will attend Dubai ICC meeting

Mirpur: N Srinivasan, who has been asked to step down as president of the Board of Control for Cricket in Indian (BCCI) by the Supreme Court, will be attending the International Cricket Council’s (ICC) executive board meeting on April 9-10 in Dubai.

Though a huge campaign is on against Srinivasan attending the meeting, BCCI secretary Sanjay Patel said that the Supreme Court has not objected to Srinivasan attending the meeting.

“We want him to attend ICC meetings because it is due to his hard work in the past few months that the BCCI has been strengthened in world cricket,” Patel said.

The meeting is set to discuss the legal perspectives of the proposed ICC governance model, which includes the elevation of Srinivasan as the ICC chairman.

The BCCI’s argument is that the court has said that no person employed with India Cements can be part of the BCCI administration but does not say that Srinivasan must also resign as India’s nominee to the ICC. Following the court order, M A Satheesh, Team India’s logistics manager, who is an employee of India Cements, had to be withdrawn and has left the World Twenty20.

The argument of the BCCI is also that Srinivasan is the chief of the Tamil Nadu Cricket Association and the BCCI has the right to nominate him for the ICC meeting.

Interestingly for the ICC, the India Supreme Court order is an internal matter for the BCCI and the world body does not interfere in any internal affairs of cricket boards. As things stand now, Srinivasan taking over as ICC chairman is just a formality, with the ICC annual conference in June having to approve it. However, the only obstacle could be if a nation raises their voice against Srinivasan citing legal proceedings against him.

However, a few cricketing nations are understood to have agreed to support Srinivasan as they argue that their support is for he the cricket board and the individual representing any board is ‘immaterial’.