The Board of Control for Cricket in India is in a fix as its daily operations are slowing down owing to the Supreme Court’s verdict on October 21, reports ESPNcricinfo.
The report said if the Lodha Committee does not respond immediately to an email sent by board secretary Ajay Shirke last week seeking directions from the committee on how to proceed in the wake of the October 21 Supreme Court order, the Board’s daily affairs will grind to a halt.
“Without the committee’s consent, the BCCI cannot take important decisions that include: signing of the memorandum of understanding with the ECB for the bilateral series starting on November 9, setting a new date for the IPL media rights tender which was postponed last Tuesday, and determining the threshold value for any financial transaction of the board relating to future contracts,” it added.
The Lodha Committee was asked by the SC to set the threshold value, and all contracts in excess of that amount would need the committee’s approval.
In its interim orders, passed on October 17 and then 21, the court had put clamps on the BCCI releasing funds to the states unless they submitted an affidavit saying they would adopt all the Lodha recommendations.
The court had also asked the committee to appoint an auditor, who would oversee all the contracts the BCCI had got into since the July 18 order which made it mandatory for both BCCI and the state associations to subscribe to the committee’s recommendations. “Despite the BCCI raising this matter of the email now, it should be aware that the committee had already made it clear last week that the ball is in fact in the board’s court,” the report added.
The committee had written to Shirke on October 24 saying that BCCI president Anurag Thakur needs to give an undertaking on behalf of the BCCI to unreservedly comply with the court order. “We sent the letter detailing a lot of day-to-day stuff we need to do. If you don’t get a clarification quickly the operations can come to a standstill,” a BCCI official was quoted as saying.
