Anurag Thakur to SC: Lodha panel recommendations do not appear to be in the interest of cricket

12/07/2016

BCCI president Anurag Thakur has blasted the Lodha panel recommendations in his affidavit to the Supreme Court, saying the removal of democratically elected office-bearers will “paralyse administration” and that these recommendations “do not appear to be in the interest of cricket”.

“Removal of democratically elected office-bearers will not result in any benefit to the game of cricket and shall instead paralyse administration immediately, creating great chaos in the game... further removal of office-bearers without any default being attributable to them shall have a direct impact on representation of BCCI in various international organisation such as ICC...in their absence, the BCCI and state associations shall not be able to function and shall become headless organisations,” Thakur wrote in his affidavit, according to a report in Cricbuzz website.

In their affidavits submitted to the Supreme Court, both Thakur and BCCI secretary Ajay Shirke expressed their grievances against the Lodha panel recommendations, especially the one that calls for former home secretary GK Pillai to oversee the operations of the BCCI.

“The Lodha Committee cannot shift the responsibility of overseeing the affairs of the BCCI to another third party, who does not have any expertise of running cricket in India and has no established credentials. The recommendations made by the Committee do not appear to be in the interest of the cricket. These shall have the impact of severely weakening the cricket administration all over the country and shall make the BCCI a weak organisation, that is not able to represent itself in international forum,” Thakur wrote.

The BCCI chief also pointed out that a lot of the board’s day-to-day activities have come to a halt due to the Lodha panel – the board has struggled to organize the ongoing Test series against England, and with four months left for the upcoming IPL season, the BCCI is yet to sign any contract with its vendors.

“No guidance has been received from the Committee so far in terms of the orders passed by this Honourable Court. This has resulted in various affairs of the BCCI having come to a grinding halt causing defaults on the part of BCCI, and have tremendously hurt Indian cricket and the goodwill and image of the BCCI,” Thakur wrote.

Thakur also expressed his inability to force state associations into adopting the panel’s recommendations. “As President, I am thus rendered totally incapable and without any authority to force the members, who are 30 in number and have voting rights under the statute, to adopt the entire memorandum, as proposed for adoption by the Committee,” he said.

Thakur and Shirke’s affidavits will be examined by a Supreme Court bench on Friday.