Shashank Manohar to continue BCCI reforms under his leadership: Anurag Thakur

Manohar and Srinivasan have been at loggerheads of late and it was thought the Nagpur man will recall his former Chennai colleague from the ICC.

In all probability, former BCCI President Shashank Manohar is all set to return for the top post at the Board’s Special General meeeting scheduled for today. Jagmohan Dalmiya’s demise left the post vacant. There had also been fears that the new president would be elected on the back of a potentially bitter battle for power owing to the many factions riddling the BCCI’s corridors of power. “The BCCI needs to address issues of credibility and image and there is no one better than Manohar to do the job”, the Maharashtra Cricket Association (MCA) president said.

But Pawar’s group members were not keen to have any truck with the TN strongman – who has made a decision to keep away from the whole rigmarole. The secretary also said that there was only one nomination from East Zone which made it clear.

Manohar’s was the lone nomination at the end of the 7 pm deadline. With Anirudh Chaudhry submitting a petition questioning the claims of secretary Anurag Thakur in the Supreme Court, the board members are unhappy with the treasurer. No other nominations was received. “So I congratulate Shashank Manohar and we will wait for the formal meeting to happen on Sunday”, said Thakur. Different people come, different people run the board, they are all capable.

Thakur said he is sure Manohar will take over for the good of the board. But “support” and “backing” are fickle terms when it comes to BCCI politics and as it turned out, all six members in the East – Jharkhand, Bengal, Assam, Orissa, National Cricket Club and Tripura – have chosen to flow with the tide regardless of the nature of their previous affiliations with Srinivasan. It will endorse the candidature of Manohar, who returns as the BCCI president after four years. Incidentally, neither Srinivasan nor Choudhary will even be present for Manohar’s swearing in. Srinivasan will not be attending the meeting with Tamil Nadu Cricket Association being represented by P S Raman. He had previously held the post from 2008 to 2011.

“After the demise of Dalmiya, it was very important to continue the reforms which had taken place in BCCI in the last six months”.

“While the records of the BCCI show the reasons for amendments to be unrelated to personal interests of the applicant or that of the interest of India Cements Ltd, to say that amendment was to benefit the applicant would be an egregious lie”, said Srinivasan.

He said that those who approved the amendment at various stages included Thakur and the current Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi, in his capacity as president of the Gujarat Cricket Association at the time. “He was the consensus candidate so there was no question of backing him”, Pawar said indicating that Manohar was the obvious choice.

Sourav Ganguly led East Zone’s call to nominate Manohar as the next board president.