The BCCI working committee will meet in Kolkata on September 1. The meeting assumes significance with the Supreme Court going to hear the cricket boards plea,challenging the Bombay High Courts ruling,on August 29.
The Bombay High Courts verdict declared the BCCI-instituted two-member probe commission,set up to inquire into the IPL betting and spot-fixing,illegal and unconstitutional.
This is going to be an emergent working committee meeting. We have to decide our future course of action. Also,we have to fix the date of our Annual General Meeting (AGM), BCCI treasurer Ravi Savant told The Indian Express.
Interestingly,this is going to be the last working committee meeting before the AGM unless circumstances force the annual meeting to be deferred. The BCCI constitution does have the provision of postponing the AGM.
It was deferred by 22 days in 2004,when Jagmohan Dalmiya was the Board president and Sharad Pawar had challenged Ranbir Singh Mahendra for the hot seat. Mahendra eventually defeated Pawar on Dalmiyas casting vote but the Maratha strongman came back with a bang the next year,decimating Dalmiyas faction at the AGM held in Kolkata.
Dalmiya is now the Boards interim head after N Srinivasan decided to step aside following his son-in-law and Chennai Super Kings official Gurunath Meiyappans arrest for his alleged involvement in cricket betting. Srinivasan,however,attended the IPL governing council meeting in Delhi on August 2.
He was also supposed to attend the working committee meeting but the meeting had to adjourned on a technicality as secretary Sanjay Patel didnt mention the word emergent in his notification.
Asked if Srinivasan would be attending the Sundays meeting,a top BCCI official remained non-committal. What I know is that this is going to be a very important meeting. An emergent meeting can be called on three days notice and today the notification has been issued. We have to discuss the NCA matters. The NCA committee has put forward a recommendation about setting up the zonal academies again. Also,we have to appoint a new NCA director,though it is unlikely that we will do that on Sunday,the official said.
We will discuss the revised itineraries for South Africa and New Zealand tours. The finance committee report will be tabled, he added.
SA Itinerary by Nov 30
It has been reliably learnt that the BCCI has chalked out an alternative itinerary for the tour of South Africa but can stretch the matter till November 30 before announcing it officially. We are in no hurry. We will finalise all itineraries by November 30, said a BCCI office bearer.
As per the schedule sent by Cricket South Africa (CSA),the tour starts on November 17 with a T20 international but the Indian cricket board has rejected it and the series is likely to be a truncated one starting in December. The BCCI is still smarting over Haroon Lorgats appointment as CSA chief executive and wants to chaff him a bit before announcing the revised schedule.