Skip to main content

Shastri criticises move to remove Mumbai's full member status


The full membership of the Mumbai Cricket Association (MCA) was under threat from the day the Supreme Court accepted Lodha Committee's reforms, one of which was `one state-one vote,' but that eventuality now looks inevitable after the association's name was missing amongst the list of full members mentioned in the new Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) constitution put up on the Board's website on Saturday.
The new constitution was finalised by the Supreme Court-Committee of Administrators (COA). As per the new system, the 41-time Ranji champions, who've produced more than 70 Test cricketers, and were once the power centre of Indian cricket, have been reduced to an associate member, and will get to vote once every three years in the Board elections, sharing their turn with Maharashtra (which has been recognised as a full member since it's a state, but gets to vote once in three years) and Vidarbha. In a similar case in Gujarat, Baroda, Saurashtra too are now associate members, with their vote rotating an annual basis.
As expected, all the North Eastern states, including Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Arunachal Pradesh, Sikkim, and others like Uttarakhand, Bihar and Telangana have been granted full membership and voting rights as recommended in Lodha Panel reforms. The fact that an association which has a huge place in the history of Indian cricket, has lost its full membership status in favour of those states who don't even play in the Ranji Trophy has left the Mumbai cricket community - both ex-players and administrators seething.
"It's a joke. I feel sad that the glorious history, tradition and contribution of the association to Indian cricket went unnoticed," former India and Mumbai all-rounder-turned commentator, who was recently the Team India director too, Ravi Shastri, told TOI on Sunday (March 19). On its part, the MCA had rejected this clause in its Special General Meeting [SGM] in November last year, and it doesn't seem like there'll be a change in its stand in the near future. "The MCA has a long history of cricket, cricketers and administration, so we'll discuss the same in our managing committee meeting [scheduled for this week], and decide," said MCA president Ashish Shelar.
This clause was rejected at last year's BCCI SGM by all the states affected by it, but with pressure increasing on all the associations to adopt the Lodha reforms in toto, the MCA may be fighting a lost battle here. "There may not be a need for a Board SGM to approve the new BCCI constitution, since this has already been approved by SC," said a source.
A BCCI official explained that the COA didn't have a choice but to give a green signal to the new constitution, since it was drafted by the SC-appointed Lodha Panel and approved by the apex court.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Utah gymnastics: Utes enjoy down time before ramping up again for Regionals

Members of Utah's gymnastics team will get back to work in the coming days to prepare for the NCAA regionals on April 1 after a few days of rest and light work to let their bodies recover. The fourth-ranked Utes are the top seed in the Fayetteville, Ark., regional, where they will compete against No. 9 Denver, No. 16 Cal, No. 21 Auburn, No. 27 Arkansas and No. 28 Central Michigan. The Utes, who won the Pac-12 title with a season-high 197.925, continue to put their focus on clean landings, the one area in which they feel they can improve, Utah co-coach Megan Marsden said. The Utes are using practice competitions and other means to focus on the landings. "They enjoy competition among themselves, and it helps to have a reason and purpose at this point in the year to keep it fresh," Marsden said. The good news is the Utes feel they can focus on the details because their training has been solid throughout the season. If anything, the coaches are toeing the line bet...
Post a Comment
Read more

IPL 2017: Complete list of players missing IPL 10 due to injuries

Before the IPL kickstarts its tenth edition teams losing players to injuries has become the trend. With less than four days to go for the tournament to begin, some of the biggest names of world cricket have already pulled out. Royal Challengers Bangalore are seemingly the worst-hit. Their skipper Virat Kohli is already nursing a shoulder injury and will be out for a couple of weeks. Again, yesterday it was confirmed that their other star batsman KL Rahul, too will miss the season as undergoes a surgery. Rahul was injured during the recently concluded Border-Gavaskar Trophy and as per reports he will soon be travelling to London to undergo surgery. Rahul had earlier given hints about his injury and how the injury was stopping him from playing extravagant strokes. After skipper Virat Kohli, KL Rahul is the second Indian batsman from RCB who has got injured. In Kohli’s absence AB de Villiers was supposed to lead the Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) side. However, that seems to be...
Post a Comment
Read more

India will be fine without Kohli: Smith

Australia skipper confident India can cover the potential loss of Kohli in the fourth Test Australia captain Steve Smith has no doubt Ajinkya Rahane will be able to adequately lead India in the final Test should captain Virat Kohli be ruled out through injury. Kohli will need to pass a fitness Test on his injured right shoulder in order to play in the series-decider in Dharamsala, with youngster Shreyas Iyer called in as cover. When Kohli left the field after falling heavily attempting to prevent a boundary midway through the opening day of the third Test in Ranchi, Rahane, as vice-captain, was instilled as the interim skipper for the next 89 overs.  Australia were bowled out for 451 under Rahane’s watch but Kohli returned in Australia’s second innings, barely fielding a ball at first slip during the visitors’ 100 overs at the crease. With Kohli racing against the clock to be fit for perhaps the biggest Test of his career, Smith expects Rahane to once again fill in as his counte...
Post a Comment
Read more