Runaway victory for Srinivasan

All the President’s Men! That would aptly describe the new panel of administrators at the Board of Control for Cricket in India.  

Contrary to a largely-held belief that majority of the associations were against N Srinivasan, the Tamil Nadu strong man not only ensured his trouble-free re-election to the top post but also appointed his trusted lieutenants to most of the plum posts, including the heads of the Finance Committee, the IPL Governing Council and the National Cricket Academy Board.

Srinivasan -- who chaired the Sunday’s Annual General Meeting although all the presidential duties were carried out by the newly-elected secretary Sanjay Patel -- may have been re-elected unopposed but his real test will be on Monday when the Supreme Court is expected to give its verdict in a case filed against him by the Cricket Association of Bihar. Any adverse verdict may upset Srinivasan’s ambition to rule the richest Board but the wily administrator might just have covered most of the bases by installing his men to key posts.

While a technical issue, getting a proposer and a seconder from the South zone, may have trumped other president-aspirants, but there was no one stopping Srinivasan’s detractors from contesting for other positions. However, with all the Southren associations and most of the East Zone members expressing their solidarity with Srinivasan along with scattered support from other zones, his opponents quickly realised that the numbers weren’t clearly with them to challenge his authority.

Outgoing vice-president and Saurashtra Cricket Association boss Niranjan Shah admitted majority stood behind Srinivasan, who till Saturday was believed to be a pariah to most of the Board associations because of propriety issues. “It’s all about majority,” said Shah as he made his way out of Sunday’s meeting. “As per the (BCCI) constitution, board has conducted the AGM. Srinivasan chaired it. It is a part of democratic process. I hold no grudge against anyone,” he remarked.

It is learned that even from West Zone, Shah couldn’t muster more than his association’s vote (which is his own vote) with Baroda, Gujarat and Mumbai supporting Srinivasan’s choices on the eve of Sunday’s AGM. There was uncertainty over Maharashtra attending the meeting.  

As a result, South and East associations were rewarded handsomely. While Ranjib Biswal, Odisha Cricket Association chief, was made the IPL Governing Council Chairman, the NCA Board Chairman’s post went to Kerala CA’s head TC Mathew. The Anil Kumble-headed Karnataka State Cricket Association were given as many 11 posts in BCCI’s various committees. Shivlal Yadav from Hyderabad CA retained his vice-president’s post while Vinod Phadke of Goa was appointed the head of the Media Committee. Andhra Cricket Association’s G Ganga Raju, who switched his loyalties to Srinivasan camp along with Phadke to change the game, expectedly got the chairmanship of the prestigious Finance Committee.   
     
Besides Biswal, other one from the East to be benefitted was Jharkhand’s Amitabh Choudhary, who replaced Jammu and Kashmir’s Farooq Abdulla as the chairman of the Marketing Committee. Union minister Rajeev Shukla, who eventually showed his allegiance to Srinivasan after days’ of fence-sitting, was handed the responsibility of Tour Programme and Fixtures Committee, previously headed by Arun Jaitly.  
    
Cricket Association of Bengal president Jagmohan Dalmiya reportedly opposed Biswal’s appointment as the IPL chief but the veteran administrator was forced to fall in line, eventually settling for the head post of a newly-created North-East Cricket Development Committee.    

n  Office-bearers: President: N Srinivasan; Secretary: Sanjay Patel; Joint secretary: Anurag Thakur; Treasurer: Anirudh Chaudhry; Vice-presidents: SP Bansal (North zone); Rajiv Shukla (Central);  Shivlal Yadav (South); Ravi Savant (West); Chitrak Mitra (East).
n  The statutory committees: Selection committee: Sandeep Patil, (chairman), Rajinder Singh Hans, Roger Binny, Vikram Rathour, Saba Karim, Sanjay Patel (convener).
n Junior selection committee: Connor Williams, (chairman), Pritam Gandhe, Aman Kumar, K Jayaraman, Arup Bhattacharya, Anurag Thakur (convener).
n  Women's selection committee: Shanta Rangaswamy, (chairperson), Gulshan Sharma, Gargi Banerjee, Amrita Shinde, Rita Dey, Sanjay Patel (convener)
n  Finance committee: G Ganga Raju (Chairman), Arun Thakur, Chetan Desai, Biswarup Dey, Niranjan Shah, Kishore Dewani, Anirudh Chaudhry (convener)
n  IPL Governing Council: Ranjib Biswal (chairman), TC Mathew, Amitabh Choudhary, Chetan Desai, Nilay Dutta, Subir Ganguly, Ravi Shastri, GR Viswanath, Arindam Ganguly (special invitee), CK Khanna (special invitee), plus all the office-bearers of the BCCI and the finance committee chairman (G Ganga Raju)
n  NCA Board: TC Mathew (chairman), Sunil Dev (vice-chairman), S Lotlikar, Rajiv Singh, Rakesh Parikh, Gyanendra Pandey, KS Viswanathan, Sujan Mukherjee.
n  Umpires Sub-committee: Ravi Savant (chairman), Sunil Dev (north), Sudhakar Rao, (south), Rajesh Verma (east), Devendra Solanki (west), Bhagvandas Sutar (central), S Venkataraghavan (director), AV Jayaprakash (retired Test umpire), Anurag Thakur (convener).
n  Junior cricket committee: SP Bansal (chairman), Mehboob Iqbal, TN Ananthanarayana, Malay Chakraborthy, Raju Kane, Shoaib Ahmed, Anurag Thakur (convener).
n  Tour programme and fixtures committee: Rajiv Shukla (chairman), GS Walia, P Yadgiri, Satya Mohanty, Nitin Dalal, Mahendra Sharma, Sanjay Patel (convener).
n  Media committee: Vinod Phadke (chairman), Ravi Jain, (vice-chairman), RN Baba, Anil Patel, Sharad Padhye, Siba Prasad Tripathi.
n  Technical committee: To be chaired by Anil Kumble
n  Marketing committee: To be chaired by Amitabh Choudhary
n  Museum committee: To be chaired by CP Joshi
n  Anti-corruption and security committee: This newly-constituted committee will be chaired by Amitabh Choudhary, former additional DGP, Jharkhand.
n  North East (Cricket) Development Committee: The newly-formed committee will headed by Jagmohan Dalmiya.