Anurag Thakur

When he was elected BCCI president on May 22, 2016, Anurag Thakur became the second youngest man ever to lead the Indian board; only Fatehsingh Rao Gaekwad, who was 33 when he headed the BCCI between 1963 and 1966, had held the post at a younger age than the then 41-year-old Thakur.

But that did not mean Thakur was inexperienced; already a well-known face in Indian politics at that point, having won the Lok Sabha (India's lower house of parliament) seat three times from his constituency of Hamirpur in Himachal Pradesh while representing the BJP (one of the two biggest national parties in India), Thakur had also been in cricket administration for 15 years.

To begin, he worked with the Himachal Pradesh Cricket Association and, according to BCCI officials, help bring the state's cricket stadium in Dharamsala up to international standards. He became a BCCI office bearer for the first time in 2011, when he was elected joint-secretary in N Srinivasan's administration. He was one of the few BCCI officials who spoke up against the establishment after the IPL corruption scandal broke in 2013, saying institutions were bigger than individuals.

After Srinivasan was sidelined, Thakur was elected secretary in March 2015, a position he held even after Srinivasan's replacement Jagmohan Dalmiya died and Shashank Manohar became board president. He eventually took over from Manohar, after Manohar quit the BCCI role and was elected the ICC's first independent chairman in May 2016.

Thakur's term will be remembered for the long battle between the BCCI and the Lodha Committee, which was appointed by the Supreme Court in the months following the IPL corruption scandal to establish best practices in the BCCI. The Indian board, led by Thakur and secretary Ajay Shirke, showed consistent defiance towards implementing the committee's recommendations, which the court had signed off on. The tussle eventually ended with the pair being removed from office by a Supreme Court order on January 2, 2017.
ESPNcricinfo staff