Srinivasan-Pawar meet fuels speculation

Two former BCCI presidents, N Srinivasan and Sharad Pawar, met in Nagpur on Wednesday night, fuelling speculation in light of the vacancy caused by Jagmohan Dalmiya's death. Neither side commented publicly on the meeting, and Srinivasan followed it up on Thursday by meeting board officials close to him in Bangalore.

Wednesday's Nagpur meeting is all the more intriguing given that Pawar and Srinivasan, currently the ICC chairman, have long been at loggerheads and put up opposing sets of candidates for the last BCCI election, in March this year. Anurag Thakur, the current board secretary, was put up by Pawar and was elected after defeating Srinivasan's candidate, the incumbent Sanjay Patel, by one vote.

Earlier this year, following the Supreme Court verdict that barred Srinivasan from occupying the president's post and necessitated the election, Pawar's reaction was pithy. "I am happy Srinivasan is out. Many things have been happening in cricket for so long and this verdict will help in ending them. The need of the hour is to bring a change in cricket set-up," he said.

Dalmiya's election to the top post in March came about largely as a compromise between the two sides, which could now be coming together again to elect Dalmiya's successor.