BCCI faces Supreme Court intervention after resisting reforms

MUMBAI: The influential Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) is facing a possible leadership crisis after the country’s Supreme Court demanded it accept sweeping changes by Friday.

The BCCI finds itself on a sticky wicket after it agreed to implement only part of a raft of changes recommended by a court-appointed panel, which was set up last year to usher in reforms at the world’s richest cricket board.

The panel, headed by former chief justice of India RM Lodha, recommended, among other things, age and tenure restrictions for top officials as well as banning them from serving successive terms.

“We will pass an appropriate order tomorrow if the BCCI refuses to give any undertaking (to accept the reforms),” chief justice of India Tirath Singh Thakur said on Thursday.

A disgruntled administrator at the Cricket Association of Bihar, which is not recognised by the BCCI, had approached the top court, demanding transparency in the board’s operations.

The court made it clear that the BCCI, run largely by politicians and industrialists, could not cherry pick recommendations by the Lodha panel.

“You behave like lords. Fall in line or else we will make you,” the chief justice said last week after the panel recommended ousting the BCCI’s highest officials for non-compliance.

The panel blocked the BCCI from making two payments to its state associations on Tuesday, while approving routine expenditure, with the home series against New Zealand underway.