N Srinivasan: The BCCI Boss

The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) on Sunday re-elected N Srinivasan as president for another year despite a Supreme Court order restraining him from assuming power until it hears all the cases against him.

“Leave me alone. I don’t want to comment anything,” Srinivasan said after the BCCI’s annual general body meeting (AGM) in Chennai, where he took over as chief of the world’s richest cricket body for the third straight year.

“I have won unopposed but I am not taking charge. I have asked the new office-bearers to take charge. I am awaiting the Supreme Court order. There are lot of things on me now,” he said.

Srinivasan, who has been heavily criticised for hanging on to the chair because of the involvement of his son-in-law, Gurunath Meiyappan, in the IPL betting scandal, was elected unanimously.

An official present at the meeting said Srinivasan was anything but tense. “He was cool. We believe the Supreme Court will rule in his favour. Why blame him for his son-in-law’s mistakes?” the official said.

Not only did Srinivasan win but also got the team he wanted.

He also sidelined his dissidents.

Sanjay Patel, who was named interim secretary in June after Baroda’s Sanjay Jagdale resigned in protest, got the job full time. Himachal Pradesh’s Anurag Thakur also kept his job that of joint secretary and Haryana’s Anirudh Chaudhry, a young criminal lawyer and son of former BCCI president Ranbir Singh Mahendra, took over as treasurer.

Three of the five zonal vice presidents are new faces. Delhi’s Arun Jaitley ensured his close confidante SP Bansal became the North Zone representative while Uttar Pradesh strongman Rajeev Shukla replaced Vidarbha’s Sudhir Dabir in the Central Zone.

Dabir, who is perceived to be close to Shashank Manohar (the former BCCI president and friend-turned-critic of Srinivasan) was promptly sidelined. So was West Zone’s Niranjan Shah, the veteran Saurashtra administrator making way for Mumbai’s Ravi Savant, who was the interim treasurer. Shivlal Yadav (South Zone) and Chitrak Mitra (East Zone) got a year’s extension.

The other big decision taken was the appointment of Ranjib Biswal as IPL chairman. The Orissa Cricket Association president, who was the manager of the Indian team at several high-profile tournaments including the 2011 World Cup, got the nod despite some serious objection raised by Cricket Association of Bengal boss Jagmohan Dalmiya. But unlike last year, when his hopes of becoming the secretary were scuttled by Dalmiya and others from the East Zone, Biswal came up trumps on Sunday.

“It’s an honour to be the IPL chairman. I will work to the best of my abilities,” he told dna. Asked about the pressure that comes with the job of handling the controversy-ridden league, the former India Under-19 cricketer said: “I have just taken over. I have a plan. I have a roadmap and I will consult my (governing) council members and the other administrators before getting down to work. I want to make the 2014 IPL a success. It’s not a challenge, it’s my duty and I’ll do it.”