Former BCCI President Shashank Manohar rued that there was no one in the BCCI to take on N Srinivasan who is facing the heat over the IPL spot-fixing and betting scandal.
“The Board lacks leaders to take on Srinivasan who is shamelessly and stubbornly sticking to his chair. Nothing has moved in the last one year. The outbreak of the scandal happened in May 2013 and we are currently in April 2014,” he said. Manohar wants someone in the cricket administration to get up and raise the issue at the Emergent Working Committee meeting which has been convened on April 20 at the Board’s headquarters here.
“In BCCI, the powers (related to Board functioning) are vested with the Working Committee and the General Body, and not with the President,” Manohar said.
Asked whether there was a need to change the Board’s Constitution in the wake of Srinivasan’s stubbornness, Manohar said “no”.
“You need 3/4th majority to remove someone and that means 24 out of 31 votes. When (former IPL Chairman) Lalit Modi was removed (and banned for life in 2010) all he needed (to escape the ban) was eight votes which he did not have,” he stated.
Manohar, Srinivasan’s immediate predecessor, refused to lay the blame on the cash-rich IPL for BCCI’s current woes. “Just because of one minus point (spot-fixing scandal) you cannot blame the tournament which has a lot of plus points. It has enabled BCCI to pay former players and grant more money to the state associations for infrastructure developments,” he maintained.
The BCCI called an emergent working committee meeting in Mumbai on Sunday, April 20, to decide its future course of action following the Supreme Court’s order that forced N Srinivasan to step aside as the cricket board’s President. The meeting was called after several state associations wrote to the BCCI Interim President (administration) Shivlal Yadav, demanding a discussion on the ongoing issues.
“Right now we’ve called the meeting to discuss the Supreme Court orders and its findings. This is the sole agenda of the meeting,” Yadav said.
Asked whether the working committee will also decide on Srinivasan’s representation to the ICC and the conflict of interest issue, he said: “If any other issues come up (during the meeting), we will discuss that.”
The apex court yesterday said that Srinivasan couldn’t work in any capacity within the BCCI as he has been named in a report on the IPL spot-fixing scandal along with 12 other individuals. The court also asked the BCCI about how it will conduct a probe into the IPL spot-fixing and betting issue. It, however, allowed Sundar Raman to continue as the IPL Chief Operating Officer.