Will the BCCI Secretary-elect Jay Shah, be allowed to convene the senior selection committee meeting to pick the Indian teams for the Twenty20 and Test series against Bangladesh?
According to veteran BCCI administrators, the Supreme Court appointed Committee of Administrtors (CoA) loosely applied the BCCI Constitution to deprive the Secretary of convening the selection committee meetings prior to the Indian team’s tour of the West Indies.
Since this July the Chairpersons of the selection committees — senior, junior and women — have been entrusted with the responsibility of even convening the selection committee meetings.
The Justice Lodha Reforms in Cricket Report has only said that cricketing matters would be dealt with by cricketers, but did not say that the secretary cannot convene selection committee meetings. It has been a long-standing convention and it’s the secretary, who after ascertaining the fitness reports from the specialists attached to the team, conveys the same to the selection committee.
CoA directive
According to the CoA directive, the Chairperson of the Selection Committee has to maintain an accurate record of the meetings and mail it to the Secretary.
The BCCI President elect, Sourav Ganguly, has not minced words while interacting with the media that it’s been like an emergency situation in the last three years, that the Apex Council has to look at decisions taken by the CoA in order to restore normality in the functioning of the BCCI.
The CoA decision to not to allow the three office bearers to attend the AGM — C.K. Khanna (acting president), Amitabh Choudhary (acting secretary) and Anirudh Chaudhry (treasurer) has not gone down well with BCCI members. The treasurer Chaudhry has signed the accounts of the last two years (2016-17, 2017-18), under protest.
While the Electoral Officer N. Gopalaswami has allowed the representatives of Services, Railways and All India Universities to attend the AGM and allowed replacements for Uttar Pradesh and Manipur, the CoA has allowed Maharastra to attend the AGM without voting rights, but has kept the Tamil Nadu Cricket Association and Haryana Cricket Association out of the AGM.
