BCCI eyes change in electing president

ESPNCricinfo: The BCCI is considering an amendment to its constitution that will allow the most “capable” candidate across zones to be elected president, as opposed to the current zonal system. A special general body meeting is likely to be convened on September 15 to finalise the issue.

The BCCI president has traditionally been chosen on a rotational basis with each zone appointing a nominee from within who has to be recommended by one proposer and seconded by another office-bearer from the same zone. The new system, if adopted, will need an additional proposer from the same zone to support the nomination. This would ensure that a candidate from outside the zone would have reasonable support in the zone backing him.  “Just because presidents are elected by rotation by default, that does not mean the candidate can be anyone. But if there is at least more than one proposer supporting him from his zone that at least would prove he is a person of merit,” a working committee member told ESPNcricinfo.

The matter was reportedly raised at the board’s working committee meeting in Chennai on Wednesday by the president N Srinivasan; the committee members agreed to discuss it at the special meeting next month.

 Srinivasan’s term ends in September 2014 and it will then be the turn of the East Zone to nominate the president. However, there are fears within the board about a suitable candidate from that zone. “There is no unanimous choice yet, nor any eminent name coming from the East,” the member said.  As a solution, Shashank Manohar, Srinivasan’s predecessor, informally told board members last year that the “best man should lead the board” and suggested the increase in the number of proposers. All the members had agreed in principle with Manohar. “The BCCI is a powerful association so there needs to be a capable person appointed as the president,” another board official said.

Another key decision finalised at the meeting was extending the one-time monetary benefit payment to Gundappa Viswanath, Mohinder Amarnath, Dilip Vengsarka and Syed Kirmani. The board had initially said that these four players were not eligible for the payment because each one had been granted a benefit ODI in the past. However, it is understood that some of those players sought Srinivasan’s intervention saying they deserved the one-time scheme because they had not made enough money from the benefit match.

“Their other argument was some of the other former Indian players who had an independent benefit match, even if not an international, were getting the one-time grant, why should they miss out,” another working committee member said.