Anirudh Chaudhry (right) will be part of the BCCI’s delegation at the upcoming ICC meetings © PTI
Senior banker Vikram Limaye will join acting BCCI secretary Amitabh Choudhury and treasurer Anirudh Chaudhry as the board’s representatives for the quarterly round of ICC meetings, which take place in Dubai between February 2-5. The appointments were finalised on Monday at a Supreme Court hearing in Delhi, in which the Court also approved a committee of administrators to run the BCCI.
The Court’s decision on who represents the BCCI at the ICC will be of particular interest to cricket administrators around the world as they gather for a significant round of meetings later this week. A number of the big decisions world cricket has been discussing and debating over the last year could be pushed through at the meeting. There is expected to be some progress on the vast governance changes ICC board members have been working on, changes that undo much of the administration and revenue distribution measures that were put forth by the Big Three in 2014.
There will also be a continuation of discussions on the shape and format of international cricket in the future. As well as being impacted by these decisions, in ordinary circumstances the BCCI would have been a key influence on the decision-making itself; any reduction, for instance, of their share in a new revenue distribution model – as mooted in the past by ICC chairman Shashank Manohar – would likely have been opposed. It still may, of course, but the impermanence of the BCCI administration currently might have an effect on how the meetings develop.
Limaye was one of four people appointed by the Court to be on the committee of administrators, and he was chosen to travel to Dubai due to his vast experience in the finance sector. The Court made it clear that the committee is the final authority on all matters until the BCCI conducts fresh elections having amended its constitution as per the Lodha Committee recommendations. Effectively that means Limaye would need to sign off on any BCCI decision taken at the ICC meetings later this week.
At the hearing on Monday, the Court had initially suggested that acting board secretary Choudhury accompany Limaye for the ICC meetings. But BCCI’s legal counsel Arvind Datar pointed out that as a treasurer Chaudhry had better knowledge of the finances in cricket and hence should also be part of the BCCI team. Gopal Subramanium, the amicus curiae in the case, raised reservations against BCCI office bearers’ attending the the ICC meetings.
The Court, however, made it clear that it was approving both Choudhury and Chaudhry to travel as an exception and mainly because they had prior knowledge of the BCCI’s stand on ICC matters as they had been part of the previous administration. Justice Dipak Misra, part of the three-judge bench, pointed out that it was not giving a “stamp of approval” on their eligibility as office bearers.
This will be the first ICC meeting for not just Limaye but also Choudhury and Chaudhry. The BCCI CEO Rahul Johri was present at the big ICC meetings last year – the annual conference in Edinburgh in June and the quarterly meetings in Cape Town. In Edinburgh, the former BCCI president Anurag Thakur and former secretary Ajay Shirke were also present, while Thakur was in Cape Town as well.
In practice, somebody like Limaye, with no previous experience of cricket administration and with only an interim role at the BCCI, does not pose any problems as far as the ICC board taking decisions is concerned. Each member nominates its representatives to the ICC board and the chief executives’ committee, so whether an official is interim or permanent doesn’t matter, and they vote – if a vote is required – as normal. In theory, if any resolutions pass at this meeting that a future, permanent administration of the BCCI is not happy with, they can raise the point on the agenda at a future meeting.
Nagraj Gollapudi is a senior assistant editor at ESPNcricinfo
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Source: ESPN Crickinfo