Working Committee meeting today to chart future course

The Board of Control for Cricket India’s all-powerful Working Committee is to meet here on Sunday afternoon at its headquarters to find a pathway to satisfy the latest directive of the Supreme Court in the case related to corruption in last year’s Indian Premier League.

The apex court, while turning down N Srinivasan’s fresh plea to return to the helm of the Board’s affairs as its elected chief, has ruled that he cannot be given back the BCCI’s reins till he comes out clean in a probe conducted against him and 12 others, including India-capped cricketers, whose names have been mentioned by Justice Mudgal Committee report in the IPL corruption scandal.

The apex court also put the ball back in BCCI’s court for future course of action to probe the damning contents of the Mudgal Committee report on its own through appropriate means.

The Emergent WC meeting, to be held two days before the next hearing of the case in the apex court, has been convened following demand from some state units affiliated to the Board after the Supreme Court’s hearing.

Some Board bigwigs, including secretary Sanjay Patel, are currently in the UAE watching the first phase of IPL 7 but are set to return in time to attend the crucial meeting scheduled at its headquarters - Cricket Centre – here.

Shivlal Yadav, the former India Test off spinner who is the Supreme Court-appointed interim president of BCCI for non-IPL related matters, would be chairing the meeting.

The future course of action of BCCI in the wake of whatever had transpired in the SC hearing on April 16 concerning allegations of spot-fixing and betting in IPL, is the important item on agend.

With another damning statement by its immediate past president Shashank Manohar that the Board lacked leaders to take on Srinivasan, and another former president Jagmohan Dalmiya’s observation that the BCCI’s image has been sullied, indications are that a new panel satisfying the apex court would be formed to conduct a deeper probe into the Mudgal Committee’s findings.

The BCCI website indicated Sunil Gavaskar, the Supreme Court-appointed interim president for IPL-related matters, as the chairman of Working Committee, but Yadav is not certain whether his former cricket skipper would attend the meet, as he is in Dubai for the IPL.