There seems to be absolutely no hurry in the Supreme Court with regards to the Board of Control for Cricket in India which goes about its business as usual with the annual general meeting scheduled to be held on December 24.
BCCI has a filed a slew of seven applications in the SC to amend certain statutes in the new constitution crafted by the court-appointed Justice RM Lodha committee to go into the reforms of the India's national cricket body.
Obviously the member states were forced to fall in line as well even though some sought the SC's indulgence to deal with matters as per their own convenience. But with disbursement of funds being the major bargaining tool, the SC appointed amicus curae managed to get most to fall in line.
The two most important changes sought by the BCCI are Rule 45, which stipulates that any changes to the constitution must be ratified by the court, and the other relates to the length of terms in office along with the mandatory cooling off period.
There's all likelihood of the SC bench keeping the ratification intact, but the tenure and how the terms of office at the state and national levels be not counted consecutively and instead be kept separate from each other would be the BIG one.
The amendment to the terms of office allows the current set of office-bearers, led by BCCI president Sourav Ganguly, two more years at the helm.
Given their performance in the current uncertain and tough times, especially holding an incident-free Indian Premier League off-shore, would definitely strengthen their case. And the way Team India was selected and made to travel together for tour of Australia shows pretty mature planning as players across the formats were able to get over the quarantine and other logistical restrictions as a single unit says a lot about BCCI's approach.
Compared to the reverses suffered by England,who had no option but to abandon their tour of South Africa mid-way, and Pakistan players being served an ultimatum by New Zealand for repeated breach of quarantine restrictions, Team India's off-field journey has been a fairly smooth ride so far.
And even the results in the limited overs games were not too bad. But the sublime capitulation at Adelaide against the pink ball seems to have overshadowed all else.
The reverse, coupled with the fact that the side has to face Australia in the remaining three Tests without skipper Virat Kohli, can serve as a wake-up call where the youngsters would be expected to stand up to be counted.
In fact, BCCI boss Ganguly would be hoping for nothing less as he himself as captain had gone about revamping the image of Team India being easy pushovers when playing away from home.
But before the action begins in the Boxing Day Test at Melbourne, BCCI is, more likely than not, expected to have handed Ganguly and secretary Jay Shah a second term, as the SC bench has directed that the petition be listed for the next hearing not before the third week of January 2021.
The first thing to be decided has nothing to do with cricket per se, but a point of law - can the present two-judge bench hearing the case make changes to the order (constitution) passed by a three-judge bench.
Only then can BCCI's seven applications be taken up for arguments and final disposal. But since the SC bench has agreed to hear the application, there is no bar on BCCI at the moment about going about its affairs unfettered!s
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