Former BCCI president Anurag Thakur’s brother Arun Singh Dhumal and Union Home Minister Amit Shah’s son Jay Shah are the two with political links who figure as representatives of the 38 BCCI members (Cricket Association of Puducherry included) for the AGM and election to be held here on October 23.
While Arun was elected president of the Himachal Pradesh Cricket Association recently, Jay did not contest the Gujarat Cricket Association (GCA) election.
Among the cricketers, Karnataka’s Brijesh Patel is eminently qualified to hold a senior position in the Apex Council as he has been in cricket administration for a long time. It remains to be seen if he gets the support of those who will be calling the shots when the time comes for nominations.
The other well-known players who have been nominated to represent their States are Sourav Ganguly (Bengal), Mohammad Azharuddin (Hyderabad), Jaydev Shah (Saurashtra) and Harvinder Singh (Indian Railways).
Ganguly has been an administrator for some time and has multi-tasked as chairman of the BCCI Technical Committee, coach, mentor and media personality. The question is whether he would give up all for a place in the Apex Council.
There are also others like Rajat Sharma who ever since he became the DDCA President, has been freely talked as the future BCCI President and seasoned Administrator Rajiv Shukla. Both were close to the late Arun Jaitley, whose advise was sought by those in power at DDCA and BCCI.
Punjab CA would be represented by its Vice President and brother of India’s batting coach, Vikram Rathour.
With only six positions in the BCCI Apex Council and two in the IPL Governing council available, only a handful can aspire to become Apex Council members. Most of the office bearers of the State Associations would prefer to stay in their home constituency.
Clearly the first Apex Council of the BCCI would lack experience, but as Lodha said once here after a book release function, “New people bring new ideas”.
Electoral officer N. Gopalaswami said he would scrutinise representatives of the BCCI members who are deemed to be BCCI Constitution-compliant by the CoA. The valid list will be announced on October 10.
