With the Supreme Court set to pass its order on the BCCI’s response to the Justice R.M. Lodha panel recommendations on Monday, president Anurag Thakur gave the first indications that the Board might pare its opposition and be open to working out an agreeable formula in the matter.
Insisting that it was not easy to turn the existing structure of cricket governance in the country entirely upside down at one go regardless of any judicial verdict, Thakur, nonetheless, was not stubborn about not implementing any order, wary of being held in contempt.
“It’s not just the BCCI office-bearers. You cannot simply do away with the entire management and the existing set up at one go. There are the State associations and then the zones, the districts and the clubs. Some States have more that 4000 members. It has to go all the way down to that level and all this takes time. We will file our response to the court tomorrow,” Thakur said, speaking on the sidelines of the India-New Zealand ODI here.
Thakur, who has also been asked to file an affidavit by Monday on whether the BCCI sought support from the International Cricket Council (ICC) and if accepting the Lodha panel’s recommendations amounted to government interference in the administration, however, refused to answer whether the BCCI was willing to put its stand in writing to the Supreme Court.
The court has already said that the recommendations must be implemented unconditionally and the BCCI could sit down with the panel to discuss any issues it had.
Interestingly, the Special General body Meeting (SGM) of the BCCI that was held in Delhi on Saturday was reported to have decided against any large-scale changes to the existing set-up, triggering speculations of a fresh face-off with the apex court. It remains to be seen what the Board’s final response would be.
Taking a dig at the latest Supreme Court order that mandated a requisition to the Lodha panel for any BCCI decision, Thakur said the Board would announce Rs. 1 crore for the Indian team as appreciation for becoming No. 1 in Tests “provided the court approves of it since we have to take permission for all decisions. I hope it will not be turned down.”
Thakur also reiterated that the BCCI was never, in principle, opposed to the Decision Review System (DRS) but had always wanted it to be 100 per cent accurate and reliable before accepting its use.
The ICC general manager Geoff Allardice is likely to make a presentation on the same to the ICC on October 20 — coinciding with the second ODI against New Zealand — in Delhi.
India is the only country to not subscribe to the DRS.
