da 888casino： In order to ensure continuity the BCCI has announced a president-elect tosucceed Sharad Pawar
Anand Vasu in Mumbai21-Aug-2007
Continuity or monopoly?: Sharad Pawar will soon move on to bigger pastures but not without ensuring that his fief is in safe hands © Getty Images
While much of the attention was focussed on the Board of Control forCricket in India’s crackdown on players who have aligned with the IndianCricket League there was another significant development that took place.In order to ensure continuity the BCCI has announced a president-elect tosucceed Sharad Pawar. That office will most likely be held by Chirayu Amin, presidentof the Baroda cricket association, for three months, and then, probably, by ShashankManohar for three years through to 2011.Pawar will become vice-president of the International Cricket Council inJuly 2008, and will then have to relinquish office at his home board. An interim president will hold office for the three-month period from July tillSeptember 2008, when the elections are set to take place.Once the ICC announced that David Morgan of the ECB, and Pawar from theBCCI, would take up office as ICC president in 2008 and 2010 respectively,the BCCI decided to do something similar at home, whereinthe president elect will be chosen a year in advance. This suggestion camefrom Inderjit Singh Bindra, former president of the BCCI and currentpresident of the Punjab Cricket Association. It was suggested that such apractice would ensure that the president elect had a good workingknowledge of the board, and that elections would proceed in a smoothmanner.According to the procedural changes being suggested, the interim president forthat period will be someone from the same zone as the existing president -West Zone – which in this case is Amin. By rotation the next turn, whichwill be for a full three years, from September 2008 till 2011, goes toCentral Zone. The front-runner here is Shashank Manohar, who is thepresident of the Vidarbha Cricket Association and vice-president of theBCCI, apart from being a close aide of Pawar. What this will mean, ineffect, is that there will be no elections for the post of president in2008 and the current regime will continue, unchallenged, till 2011.It is understood that Lalit Modi, the man behind many of the financial andbusiness aspects of the board, suggested that a similar procedure beadopted for other office bearers of the board, apart from the president,in order to ensure some sort of continuity. However, this did not come upfor discussion in the course of the two special general meetings held inMumbai on Tuesday.