cricket

Updated: Feb 20, 2016 09:14 IST

The Board of Control for Cricket in India’s (BCCI) special general meeting (SGM) in Mumbai on Friday will look to arrive at a consensus following the Supreme Court’s directive that it has to comply with the Justice (retd) RM Lodha committee recommendations.

With the deadline of March 3 closing in, when the Board has to report to the Apex court, the BCCI would be seeking the opinion of its member associations on implementing the recommendations.

Many state associations are still figuring out the recommendations and have expressed their helplessness on getting around some of the issues, which they feel are impractical. Confrontation is ruled out as they have chosen to make a plea to the Apex court on concerns that require a relook.

“We have our own understanding and issues that affect our respective associations owing to the nature of the recommendations. We will try and present our arguments before the Board. We will see how many of them (recommendations) get approval from the BCCI’s legal team and only then we will have clarity on implementation,” an association official told HT.

Age limit

The vexing issues for most associations have been limiting the tenure of the office bearers, restricting their age limit to 70, the ‘one-state, one-vote’ clause and barring ministers and government officials from becoming office-bearers.

“We have given so much of our time and effort to make our association what it is today. Three to four decades of commitment has gone into building stadiums and infrastructure and improving the performance of our state team, and now we have to concede our voting rights, making our representation at the BCCI negligible,” said the official of an association that is in danger of losing its voting rights.

The issue of giving recognition to a state association with more than one claimant too has triggered a discussion.

“We have no issues in granting more affiliates recognition but when you have multiple claimants and court cases are pending, how is it possible to know who is the rightful claimant?” asked a BCCI official.

Board’s influence

The BCCI will seek its legal team’s opinion on the recommendations which can be fully implemented, and those which can be raised before the Supreme Court for further consideration.

The SGM will also discuss the financial structure of the member boards of the ICC, as many in the Board are not sure whether India can continue to be the dominant recipient of ICC revenue.

Recently under president Shashank Manohar’s stewardship, the ICC Board had overturned the structure put in place by former chairman, N Srinivasan, in 2014 which gave enormous powers to the ‘Big Three’ (India, Australia and England) and the lion’s share of the ICC revenues.