CoA chairman Vinod Rai says there is no long-term place for the committee in BCCI
What’s the story?
The chairman of the Supreme Court-appointed Committee of Administrators, Vinod Rai, is confident that his team members will transform the "personality-oriented" Board of Control for Cricket in India into a "structured" institution by October.
"It is still a long haul, but that ends in October," Rai told ESPNcricinfo
"I am very realistic because I don't see a place for the COA in the BCCI in the long term. We want to provide a structure to the BCCI. It does not have one right now. It is run by individual styles. It is personality-oriented. We will put a structure in place and ensure that there are systems that will make this structure work."
In case you didn’t know...
Rai, the former Comptroller and Auditor-General of India, was appointed to the panel along with former India women's captain Diana Edulji, historian Ramachandra Guha and managing director and CEO of IDFC (Infrastructure Development Finance Corporation), Vikram Limaye.
The committee was appointed on January 30 and began functioning on February 1.
The heart of the matter
The need for the CoA arose after Anurag Thakur and Ajay Shirke were sacked by the BCCI for not abiding by most of the Lodha Committee's recommendations despite the court's order in July 2016.
The CoA were then given the mandate to oversee the BCCI’s proceedings until fresh elections were held for the office bearers' posts.
Rai revealed that the CoA spent the first few months of their tenure dealing with issues like defining the exact powers of the committee, ICC's board meetings and organisation of the IPL.
More recently, the committee also stepped in to resolve the uncertainty around India's participation in the Champions Trophy.
What’s next?
It will be interesting to see if the CoA can actually transform the BCCI for the betterment of Indian cricket before the deadline ends. They still have five months to achieve their goal.
Author’s Take
The CoA have already had a substantial say in many of the daily affairs of the BCCI and exercised substantial clout over the matters. Having said this, their impact on the overall structure of the Indian board can only be deciphered once their tenure comes to an end.