Dubai: The Board of Control for Cricket in India’s (BCCI) Apex Council meeting on Friday assumes a great deal of significance as the richest cricketing body finds itself at the crossroads on a number of issues - from fine-tuning their plans about the Indian Premier League to the FTP (Future Tours Programme).
The meeting takes place with question mark hanging over the fates of Sourav Ganguly and Jay Shah’s tenure as president and secretary, respectively. There is no clear indication yet as to when the Supreme Court will take up BCCI’s appeal to waive their ‘cooling off’ period as mandated by Justice R.M. Lodha’s recommendations. Shah, whose tenure has ended sometime back, is expected to be attending the meeting on Friday while Ganguly’s term ends on July 27.
The council has lined up for discussion the construction of the new National Cricket Academy (NCA) facility and the fate of domestic cricketers in light of an uncertain domestic season this year due to COVID-19 pandemic. The other points on the agenda are discussions on the 2021 World T20 and tax matters related to it, Bihar cricket, filling up of vacancies of employees of the board, payment of grants of newly affiliated units among other things.
Speaking to a Indian news agency, a BCCI functionary said that the FTP and the domestic structure and fate of domestic players should ideally be the biggest talking points when the decision makers meet as the world is slowly moving towards life in the post-coronavirus era.
“You cannot put one above the other. As you know, while the FTP is very important considering how he move forward after so many series cancellations and piling up of commitments, domestic cricket needs equal importance. As we are aware our president is very vocal about safeguarding the interest of domestic players and that is how it should be.
Asked about the discussion on the new NCA facility, the functionary said: “That will also be an important area of discussion as that is a huge land we have and can house around three proper international standard grounds. So the progress made so far and what are the areas that need to be worked on will also be discussed when we sit down tomorrow.”
Coming to the matter of T20 World Cups, the functionary said that it will be more to do with the tax related discussions for the 2021 edition and not so much about this edition which is now headed for a postponement.
“We will be discussing the matter of tax exemption as we have time till December so don’t expect a decision tomorrow. It will be more about seeing the ways we can work towards it as India hosts the T20 World Cup next year. We might also see our president discussing what is the status when it comes to this edition which is now more or less set to be shifted to 2022,” he explained.