Will Pawar step down on July 4?

MUMBAI: Will Sharad Pawar step down as president of Board of Control for Cricket in India on July 4? He was to, but in the current scenario he may not have to.

None of the BCCI officials, though, is clear if their president will actually have to relinquish the position to take over as vice-president of International Cricket Council.

Pawar is slated to become the ICC’s vice-president-cum-president-elect on July 4 this year, when the annual conference of the ICC ends in Dubai. He would go on to become the ICC president in July 2010.

A few years ago, ICC rules would have prevented Pawar from holding positions in BCCI and ICC simultaneously, but the current rules do not make it compulsory as yet. “There is currently nothing in the ICC Memorandum and Articles of Association preventing the ICC vice-president from holding office on a member board,” an ICC spokesman told DNA.

But according to him, following a change to the ICC constitution in October 2007 it became necessary to revisit this issue. The constitutional changes put in place a rotational system for future ICC presidents and created a two-year term for the vice-president instead of the normal one-year term.

Under the rules, the ICC president is not permitted to hold any office under, or perform any executive duties for, any cricket authority. But whether that rule applies to the vice-president is not yet clear.

Shashank Manohar, the BCCI’s president-elect and who is slated to take over the post, said the rules are not clear. “It will require at least 10 days to know if our president needs to step down,” he said. Manohar, incidentally, is also the constitutional expert of the BCCI.

Secretary Niranjan Shah echoed the same thing: “We’ll have to wait and see. He may not necessarily have to quit the post.” Interestingly, if Pawar were to quit, it will not be Manohar, but Chirayu Amin of Baroda Cricket Association who will become the interim president. Manohar will take over only after the Board’s AGM in September.

The Board had amended its constitution last year to make provision for a hitherto non-existent post of president-elect and as per the changes, the senior most vice-president of the zone will succeed the president in the eventuality of him quitting the post. In this case, Amin is the senior most vice-president from West Zone, from where Pawar comes from.

With just about one month left for Pawar to become the ICC president-elect, the situation is still in a fluid state. Whether Amin will actually become the president (for about three months) could be known only on July 4 when the ICC annual conference concludes.

According to ICC sources, the governance committee of the world body has actually recommended that the vice-president too should not be permitted to hold any office or perform any executive duties for any cricket authority. But that recommendation has not yet been approved. “The Governance Review Committee’s recommendations will be put up during the ICC annual conference,” the ICC spokesman added.

So if Pawar hangs on to his position, the biggest loser will be Amin who would lose an opportunity to rule the richest sports body in the world, even if for only three months.

Scenario I
Pawar steps down as BCCI president and becomes ICC president-elect on July 4; Chirayu Amin takes over as the interim BCCI president and Shashank Manohar becomes the full-fledged president on September 29

Scenario II
Pawar becomes ICC president-elect and continues to hold his BCCI post till
the completion of his three-year term which ends on September 29; Manohar immediately succeeds him