Anurag Thakur was on Sunday unanimously elected as the second youngest BCCI president, while Ajay Shirke was chosen as Secretary in a smooth transition of power at a time when the world’s richest cricket Board is sailing through choppy waters.
Anurag Thakur elected BCCI President.
The 41-year-old Thakur replaced Shashank Manohar who quit the position to take up the ICC Chairman’s job. The Maharashtra Cricket Association chief and business magnate Shirke expectedly filled in the Secretary’s post which was left vacant by Thakur’s resignation yesterday.
Senior BCCI vice-president C.K. Khanna chaired the Special General Meeting (SGM) and announced Thakur’s name for the top job.
“I feel humbled and honoured to be sitting here; it’s a journey which started 16 years ago,” Thakur said after taking over.
Manohar’s exit from the top post barely seven months into his tenure had necessitated the election of the new chief of the world’s richest and most powerful cricket body.
Soon after his resignation, Thakur got the signatures of all six east zone units in his BCCI presidential nomination form yesterday, paving the way for his unanimous choice as the 34thpresident of the world’s most influential cricket body.
In a show of solidarity yesterday, all the six east units — Cricket Association of Bengal, Assam CA, Tripura CA, NCC and Jharkhand SCA — had signed his nomination papers, even though the rules required only one unit to nominate the name of the presidential candidate. It was the East Zone’s turn this time.
The BJP MP from Hamirpur in Himachal Pradesh will be taking over the reins of the embattled Board in rather tough times as the BCCI is facing heat from the Supreme Court to implement the Justice R.M. Lodha Committee’s recommendations for sweeping reforms.
Thakur, incidentally, will go into the books as the first first-class cricketer to turn BCCI president after Raj Singh Dungarpur ended his tenure in 1998-99.
Although cricket legend Sunil Gavaskar had held the post jointly with another Test cricketer Shivlal Yadav briefly, specifically in charge of IPL affairs, that had been done at the direction of the Supreme Court which ordered then President N Srinivasan to step aside in the wake of the 2013 IPL betting and spot-fixing scandal.
While Dungarpur had played 86 first-class matches for Rajasthan and the then Madhya Bharat as a medium pacer and also claimed 206 wickets, Thakur has represented Himachal Pradesh in a lone Ranji Trophy game as a right-hand batsman and off-break bowler in 2000-01 season.
Thakur is also the third person backed by the East Zone to be elected to the top post during the 2014-2017 period.
Jagmohan Dalmiya, who was the consensus candidate after Srinivasan’s exit, died in office last year and Manohar took over in October, 2015.
He made the following announcements:
1) BCCI to give advertisement for National team’s chief coach’s post and the deadline to submit applications will be June 10.
2) Rs 100 Crore earmarked for one-year water conservation project using Solar Panels, trying ‘Rain Water Harvesting’ and ‘Sewage Treatment’ to conserve water during crisis like drought.
3) Rs 5 crore corpus created for next 5 years to help the visually challenged and deaf and mute cricketers.
4) Santosh Rangnekar appointed new Chief Financial Officer (CFO) as part of reforms suggested by Lodha Panel.
5) Minimum 10 percent free tickets for international matches allocated for girl students, specially-abled persons.
6) Specially designated seating area for the physically challenged.
7) All stadiums in India to have seats with numbers for convenience of spectators.
8) All state units told to create official Facebook/Twitter accounts as well as have websites wherein they can engage fans by uploading relevant information and statistics.
9) Creating ‘Mobile Coaching App’ licensed by BCCI which can be used in cricket academies in remote areas where they can get access to state-of-the-art coaching as 70 percent associated with these academies have access to smartphones.
10) Implementation of Central Contracts for India’s women cricketers and a detailed report sought within a month
Source : Tribune India , 22nd May 2016
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