Srinivasan is back, to chair BCCI’S informal meeting

N SRINIVASAN has called a meeting in Bangalore on Saturday that is likely to discuss the future course of action for the BCCI. According to a source, the former ICC and BCCI chief still has significant clout in the Indian cricketing fraternity and the meeting is likely to be attended by a host of administrative heavyweights like Tamil Nadu Cricket Association (TNCA) secretary Kasi Viswanathan and Karnataka State Cricket Association (KSCA) secretary Brijesh Patel.

Even after the Supreme Court’s January 2 order that ousted Anurag Thakur and Ajay Shirke as the BCCI president and secretary respectively, a section of the cricket board maintains that the “game is not over yet”. Interestingly, Srinivasan has once again become a key figure in the BCCI to decide the way forward.

“The administrators will take charge (after January 19) but to implement the Lodha reforms they will have to change the BCCI constitution, which requires a threefourths majority. As things stand now, at least 17 state associations will still say ‘no’ to the changes. So I don’t know how the changes would be ushered in,” a former BCCI office-bearer contended, speaking to The Indian Express. to fall in line. “Our organisation structure is like this: president at the helm followed by 11 vice-presidents, four joint-secretaries and treasurer. All have become ineligible following the Supreme Court order. We are out and I don't think there's any need for formal resignation. We have called our SGM in the first week for February that will decide the way forward. As for the India-england ODI that we will be hosting, chairman of our organising committee Debashish Samantaray is overseeing the arrangements,” Ashirwad Behera of the Orissa Cricket Association told this paper.

“There’s no need to resign. The court order makes us ineligible. So I’m already out,” Saurashtra Cricket Association’s Niranjan Shah said.

Tamil Nadu Cricket Association (TNCA) secretary Kasi Viswanathan concurred. “I have already been a TNCA office-bearer for more than 10 years, which makes me ineligible,” he said.

The Cricket Association of Bengal (CAB) had its office-bearers meeting on Wednesday during which the state association treasurer Biswarup Dey and the CAB’S legal counsel UN Banerjee reportedly broke into an altercation.

Dey, however, was tight-lipped on the issue. “We have called an AGM on January 9 to decide the date of the SGM,” he said. “We have to implement it. There’s no other option,” CAB president Sourav Ganguly had said on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, Shirke returned from the UK today and had a meeting with Anurag Thakur in Delhi.