(From PTI)
N. Srinivasan was on Monday dethroned as the ICC chairman after the BCCI decided to recall him and nominate its recently-elected president Shashank Manohar as the chief of the world body.
The decision to remove Srinivasan was taken at the BCCI’s 86th Annual General Meeting in Mumbai on Monday, virtually signaling the end of his hold on Indian cricket.
The tenure of Srinivasan, who took over in June last year, was to end next year in the same month and the remainder of the term would be completed by Manohar as it is India’s turn to hold the top position.
It is learnt that the resolution favouring replacing Srinivasan with Manohar was passed at the AGM. In case Manohar cannot attend the ICC meetings, Sharad Pawar will be India’s representative.
The Tamil Nadu strongman will thus lose his grip on Indian cricket for good after having already been ousted as the BCCI President owing to the 2013 IPL spot-fixing scandal in which his son-in-law Gurunath Meiyappan was held guilty of betting charges.
Although Srinivasan was not personally indicted for the damaging scandal, the Supreme Court-appointed R.M. Lodha committee had chided him for not acting on the elements which corrupted the IPL.
With his sacking as ICC chairman, Srinivasan now only remains the president of Tamil Nadu Cricket Association. His company India Cements had owned the IPL franchise Chennai Super Kings, which was suspended for two years after its officials were held guilty of betting.
The Board also decided to trim some of its sub-committees, dropped Indian Team Director Ravi Shastri from the IPL Governing Council and axed Roger Binny from the selection panel to negate the perceived conflict of interest.
Gagan Khoda and MSK Prasad were named the new members in the selection committee, replacing Rajinder Singh Hans and Binny.
Cracking the whip on conflict of interest in the Board, the BCCI unveiled a slew of reforms, including the appointment of a retired judge as its ombudsman, as part of its promised clean-up operation.
Justice (Retd.) A.P. Shah was named the ombudsman who will now deal with any complaints of conflict of interest.
“Everybody spoke in the meeting in favour of a clean and transparent Board,” Mr. Manohar told reporters after the meeting.