Shashank Manohar Promises Transparent and Corruption-Free Indian Cricket

Shashank Manohar was unanimously elected as President of BCCI. Here are the highlights of what he said:

# BCCI is a huge brand in itself. Without the support of the fans, it would not have gotten big. I would like to carry forward the good work done by Jagmohan Dalmiya.

# The BCCI  will appoint an ethics officer to look into the complaints of conflict of interest issue.

# The BCCI will also educate the players in order to wipe out corruption from the game.

# The accounts of all the state associations would be handled by an independent officer.

# Any expenditure spent in excess of 25 lakhs would be put out on the website.

# To clear the myth of lack of transparency, we will be putting out details on the website immediately.

# There are no spinners in country and it is the duty of the BCCI to see there is an available lot.

# BCCI would like to develop women's cricket.

# Priority of BCCI will be to conduct 2016 World Twenty20 in the best possible manner.

# I will not exercise my chairman's vote in the AGM until the constitution is amended.

# The BCCI will implement all the measures in two months period.

He was the Unanimous Choice

Manohar was the unanimous choice as BCCI President and this was confirmed in the Special General Meeting of the BCCI in Mumbai on Sunday.

This will be Manohar's second stint as BCCI President, having taken over from Sharad Pawar in 2008/09. It lasted for three years and it ended in 2011 when N. Srinivasan was appointed as the BCCI President.

Manohar took over the post at the Board's SGM which lasted less than half an hour. He was the only candidate left in the fray for the election in which the deadline for filing nomination ended Saturday evening.

The election was necessitated by the sudden demise of Jagmohan Dalmiya, who had a short term of seven months after his election in March this year. Dalmiya was made the interim President when Srinivasan "stepped aside" in the wake of revelations that his son-in-law was involved in betting during the 2013 IPL season.

All the six units of East Zone unanimously proposed Manohar's candidature for the president's post, reflecting Srinivasan's diminishing hold in Board's power politics.

A BCCI by-election needs only one proposer from the zone which is electing the president and it was the East's turn this time. Manohar got the nod from all the six associations and was the lone nomination at the end of the 7 pm deadline yesterday.

Interestingly, one of the proposers for Manohar was Dalmiya's son Avishek, who was representing his family club National Cricket Club (NCC) in the SGM.

Srinivasan skipped the meeting and the Tamil Nadu Cricket Association was represented by PS Raman.

The others who also proposed Manohar's name were Sourav Ganguly from Bengal, Sourav Dasgupta from Tripura, Gautam Roy from Assam, Ashirbad Behera of Odisha and Sanjay Singh of Jharkhand State Cricket Association (JSCA).

His anointment also means that Srinivasan now has little chance of coming back into the BCCI fold till 2017 when the Vidarbha man's tenure ends

Thakur Believes BCCI Will Carry on Reforms Under Manohar's Leadership

Thakur has said that the BCCI will continue the reforms under leadership of new president Shashank Manohar, which the Board had started in the last six months.

"After the sad demise of Mr Dalmiya. It was important to continue the reforms taken place in last six months. We have seen the previous tenure of Manohar, where his work has been appreciated by everyone and we believe under his leadership BCCI will continue with the reforms which has taken place under Dalmiya's leadership," Thakur said. (Read More)

Manohar's Experience Will Help Indian Cricket, Says Sourav Ganguly

Former India skipper Sourav Ganguly said he believes Manohar will do a good job. "A lot of important people have led BCCI in the past and Manohar has also done it quite well. I am sure he will do a good job," said Ganguly, who has been named as Cricket Association of Bengal (CAB) president. (Read More)