BCCI SGM: Majority wants partial adoption with August 18 in mind

NEW DELHI: Majority of the BCCI’S state associations are in favour of accepting the Lodha Reforms partially in tomorrow’s Special General Meeting, desperate to end the impasse keeping the next Supreme Court hearing on August 18 in mind.

Despite the Supreme Court barring disqualified officials like N Srinivasan and Niranjan Shah, some of their confidantes may threaten to once again play spoilsport although they may just be very small in number.

The BCCI brass is happy that the Supreme Court is ready to hear some of the reforms that they have always found practically difficult to implement.

The SC will be hearing the arguments on ‘One State One Vote’ and pruning of the national selection committee which the BCCI has always termed as unimplementable.

It is learnt that a lot of members are in favour that the general body shows enough intent by adopting the reforms partially which would also send a positive signal to the Committee of Administrators (COA) as well as the apex court. “Look, the Supreme Court has given us new hope when they stated that they will hear some of the contentious issues once again. They have directed the BCCI to adopt as many reforms as possible. “So, when the Supreme Court hears the case on August 18, at least they are aware that we have adopted a majority of the reforms,” a state unit member from west zone, who cannot be officially quoted, said on Tuesday. There is a school of thought in the BCCI to adhere to the reforms adopted during the adjourned general body meeting held on October 1, last year.

“During that particular general body meeting, the members had agreed that around 80 percent of the reforms can be accepted. Also the special committee that was formed recently has also brought down the gamut of difficulties to four.

“Therefore, if the unimplementable reforms are down to four, we can always accept the other reforms,” the official added. Another item on the agenda will be the Deloitte Report pertaining to the ‘Fund Disbursement Policy’. The board may ask the company to give a presentation. Deloitte has prepared a 103-page report and many members will find it difficult to go through that report in entirety. A proposal might be placed before the floor to summon a Deloitte representative, who will do a presentation on the salient features that need to be adopted. GALLE: Sri Lanka’s stand-in captain Rangana Herath says his team will have to come up with “something special” to have a chance against world No.1 India in the three-match cricket Test series starting here on Wednesday.

“We chased 380-odd in our last Test. But India and Zimbabwe are different teams, and we are playing international cricket so that confidence should help the boys. They are the no.1 team at the moment and are playing very good cricket. So this is an interesting and challenging tour for us. We need to do something special,” said Herath on the eve of the first Test here.

“We need to look for home advantage. But at the same time, we’ll have to look at different abilities of both teams.

We select the team on that basis. So far, we have played with more spinners but we’re playing against the world’s number one team. So we have a responsibility (to judge the situation accordingly),” he added, when asked about his side’s balance between pace and spin options.

The hosts will be missing newly-appointed regular Test skipper Dinesh Chandimal who has been laid low with pneumonia.

Dhananjaya de Silva has been drafted into the squad in his place.