Majority of state units fall in line

Sabi Hussain

Tribune News Service

new delhi, january 9

Of the Indian cricket board’s (BCCI) 31 affiliated units, 22 have agreed to implement Justice Lodha Committee’s recommendations after the Supreme Court’s January 2 verdict, according to committee’s secretary Gopal Sankaranarayanan. He said the Tamil Nadu Cricket Association (TNCA), headed by former BCCI and ICC chief N Srinivasan, and the Punjab Cricket Association (PCA), run by the decades-old close-knit group of IS Bindra, MP Pandove and GS Walia, are among the major “defaulters” who haven’t adhered to the recommendations. Others include the Rajeev Shukla-controlled Uttar Pradesh Cricket Association (UPCA), the Odisha Cricket Association (OCA), led by Ranjib Biswal and Asirbad Behera, and the Delhi & Districts Cricket Association (DDCA), administered by CK Khanna and SP Bansal.

It has been learnt that the Himachal Pradesh Cricket Association (HPCA), headed by former BCCI president Anurag Thakur, and the Anirudh Chaudhry-led Haryana Cricket Association (HCA) also haven’t consented in writing to the committee about implementing the reforms.

“Immediately after the SC’s judgment on January 2, we started receiving a lot of mails from the state associations about agreeing to implement the reforms. Some 22 associations have responded to us to accept the reforms. The ones who are still defying include TNCA, UPCA, PCA, OCA and DDCA,” Sankaranarayanan told The Tribune.

“Whosoever these associations are represented by, the administrators must understand that they will have to fall in line sooner than later. Else, they will face the contempt proceedings,” Sankaranarayanan, himself a senior SC counsel, added.

Interestingly, Srinivasan is apparently at the forefront of a possible “non-cooperation movement” against the committee’s recommendations and held an informal meeting of office-bearers of 24 affiliated units in Bengaluru last week. The meeting was supposedly to chart out the available legal remedies to challenge the SC’s judgment and to create a parallel cricket body by the state associations after severing ties with BCCI.

While nothing concrete came out of the meeting, Sankaranarayanan said that any attempt to disrupt the game would amount to contempt. “We will immediately initiate contempt proceedings against them. We know the people who want to disrupt the game. Let every state association know that if there’s any interference and anything happens with the game, they will be held guilty of contempt,” he warned.

“These people must realise they are no longer the office-bearers. They have either been disqualified or become ineligible. They don’t have the power and clout to disrupt the game. When the SC hauled up a Member of Parliament  (referring to Thakur) of the powerful BJP government at the Centre, do you think anybody would run the risk of disrupting the game? I don’t think so because they would be risking going to jail,” he added.  Asked about the ousted office-bearers ganging up to jeopardise the conduct of the forthcoming India-England series, Sankaranarayanan informed that the committee had already drawn up an elaborate plan.

“The matches would go on as scheduled. Even before these office-bearers got in touch with CCI to cancel the two warm-up games against England, we wrote to CCI and got its assurance. We actually pre-empted everything. There will be no disruption. These associations are bound by the SC to host the matches as the finances have already been cleared,” he said.