BCCI okays Pawar succession formula

While much of the attention was focussed on the Board of Control for Cricket in India's crackdown on players who have aligned with the Indian Cricket League there was another significant development that took place. In order to ensure continuity the BCCI has announced a president-elect to succeed Sharad Pawar. That office will most likely be held by Chirayu Amin, president of the Baroda cricket association, for three months, and then, probably, by Shashank Manohar for three years through to 2011.

Pawar will become vice-president of the International Cricket Council in July 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 till September 2008, when the elections are set to take place.

Once the ICC announced that David Morgan of the ECB, and Pawar from the BCCI, would take up office as ICC president in 2008 and 2010 respectively, the BCCI decided to do something similar at home, wherein the president elect will be chosen a year in advance. This suggestion came from Inderjit Singh Bindra, former president of the BCCI and current president of the Punjab Cricket Association. It was suggested that such a practice would ensure that the president elect had a good working knowledge of the board, and that elections would proceed in a smooth manner.

According to the procedural changes being suggested, the interim president for that 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, which will be for a full three years, from September 2008 till 2011, goes to Central Zone. The front-runner here is Shashank Manohar, who is the president of the Vidarbha Cricket Association and vice-president of the BCCI, apart from being a close aide of Pawar. What this will mean, in effect, is that there will be no elections for the post of president in 2008 and the current regime will continue, unchallenged, till 2011.

It is understood that Lalit Modi, the man behind many of the financial and business aspects of the board, suggested that a similar procedure be adopted for other office bearers of the board, apart from the president, in order to ensure some sort of continuity. However, this did not come up for discussion in the course of the two special general meetings held in Mumbai on Tuesday.