The former Indian skipper was supposed to remain the BCCI president only for a short stint of 9 months.
Sourav Ganguly, a former Indian skipper, was recently appointed as the President of Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI). According to the Supreme Court-appointed Lodha committee, ‘he is working out of bounds of possibility to take the Indian cricket to the next level by changing the board’s fundamental principles’.
Ganguly received praise for his ‘wantingness’ to change the state of cricket in India and for making an instant impact just a few days into his appointment. He helped organise India’s first historic pink-ball match at the home of cricket, Eden Gardens. However, his most recent move didn’t exactly fare well with RM Lodha. He said that the only reason that Ganguly was given the highest position at the board was because of reforms that took place.
‘It’s very unfortunate. I thought a cricketer at the helm of affairs will understand that it was only our reforms which brought him to this position’, he said in an interview. In an article written about this, it stated that ‘... the Supreme Court-appointed Committee of Administrators (CoA) was controlling the cricket body for about 33 months before the new office-bearers, chaired by Sourav Ganguly, took charge last month as BCCI captain’.
Lodha also discussed some important issues during the board’s Annual General Meeting. One of the main topics was ‘diluting the Lodha reforms’. They stated that ‘The Ganguly-led team had planned to put an end to the Supreme Court-mandated administrative reforms on contract cap of the board’s office-bearers’.
If the Supreme Court granted the request, Sourav Ganguly will be the BCCI president until 2024. Under the current rules, 'his stint as president should only last nine months. Justice Lodha stressed on the fact that “given the politics” in the Indian board, no cricketer would have managed to become a BCCI administrator without the help of the reforms proposed by his team,
If the earlier system was in vogue, perhaps no cricketer could have ever dreamt of heading a body like the BCCI. The way the politics is played in cricket administration, I don’t think any cricketer would have been able to get this position but for these reforms'.
According to the current set of rules and regulations in the constitution, which is granted by the Supreme Court, 'an office-bearer who has worked two three-year terms, either at the BCCI or at the state association, goes into a mandatory three-year cooling-off period’.
According to Lodha and his recommendations, Ganguly cannot hold multiple roles at BCCI. Up until now, conflict of interest has been a huge problem for Indian cricket. ‘Several former greats couldn’t contribute to Indian cricket owing to Conflict of Interest clause’.
India will face the West Indies in three ODIs beginning December 15. The odds for the first match gives India (-555.56) and West Indies (+420). To find out more about India’s upcoming matches, visit Betwala’s page.
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