Dubai: With India’s Supreme Court on Thursday, diluting some of the recommendations made by the Justice RM Lodha Committee to streamline the functioning of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), elections to take over the reins of the richest cricket board in the world will be held soon.
The office bearers would now on be allowed to serve two consecutive terms in the office instead of only one as recommended by the Lodha Committee.
Former Indian captain Sourav Ganguly is likely to emerge as the president of BCCI not only due to his stature as an administrator but as he meets the present eligibility criteria to hold the post.
Anurag Thakur and Anirudh Chaudhry, the bigwigs of the BCCI who were eyeing the top position have completed six years as administrators and have to adhere to the cooling period of staying away from administration. Ganguly had only one term as head of Cricket Association of Bengal and will now emerge as the most favoured candidate for BCCI’s top post.
The India’s apex court ruled that reforms such as the one state-one vote rule should be junked. With the result, associations like Vidarbha and Mumbai in Maharashtra and Baroda will be reinstated as full members of the board with voting rights.
The court agreed with the recommendations that the National Cricket Club and the Cricket Club of India did not deserve to be full members of the BCCI. It was done as both these clubs do not field teams in domestic cricket. However, the court gave the Services Sports Control Board, the Railways and the Association of Universities full membership in the BCCI. The recommendation which reduced the number of selectors to three was also changed with the court modifying the number of selectors from the current three to five, observing that a “broad-based selection committee” was required to tap the prodigious talent pool spread across the country.
The court retained the Lodha panel suggestion of barring government ministers or government servants from holding cricket office. It also upheld the age cap of 70 years for cricket administrators.
Lodha, commenting on the Thursday’s verdict to change the one state-one vote rule, said the attempt to remove concentration of power in the BCCI has now failed. He even went on to remark that the monopoly of power may remain.
Lodha also said the cooling off period was meant to usher in newcomers as administrators and stop any officials from creating a kingdom of their own by ruling for many years.
