Board of Control for Cricket in India Drops Ravi Shastri from IPL Panel, Roger Binny as Selector
The Board of Control for Cricket in India is aiming to remove cases of conflict of interest in cricket administration. Ravi Shastri is Team India director while Roger Binny's son Stuart is a national player.
Ravi Shastri, who is the director of Team India till the T20 World Cup next year, has been removed from the Indian Premier League governing council. The former Indian all-rounder has been involved with IPL ever since the tournament started in 2008. (N Srinivasan Removed as ICC Chairman)
The decision to drop Shastri was taken at the BCCI's annual general meeting in Mumbai on Monday. On similar ground of conflict of interest, Roger Binny has been dropped from the senior national selectors' panel. His son Stuart is a Team India member. (Advisory Panel Comprising Ganguly, Tendulkar and Laxman Could be Scrapped)
Binny has been replaced by former wicket-keeper MSK Prasad. Binny represented South Zone on the selection panel. In another change in the selection panel, Rajinder Singh Hans (Central Zone) has been replaced by Gagan Khoda. Sandeep Patil will continue to remain as chairman.
"We can't afford to destroy Stuart Binny's career. So, we had to drop his father," explained BCCI chief Shashank Manohar to the media.
The Board has also appointed former Chief Justice of India AP Shah as an ombudsman to oversee all cases of conflict of interest featuring administrators, current and former players involved with Indian cricket. More big names could fall on the wayside.
The BCCI regime, under new president Shashank Manohar, has clearly been tough on issue of conflict of interest. The Supreme Court, while barring former president N. Srinivasan from contest BCCI elections, came down hard on cricket administrators wearing multiple hats and having commercial interest in the game.
"We have to ensure that the BCCI is clean and transparent. We are unanimous that there cannot be conflict of interest," said Manohar, adding that to eliminate all cases of conflict of interest will take about two more months.ÂÂ
The RM Lodha panel, constituted by the Supreme Court, is likely to recommend changes in the BCCI constitution. The Lodha panel had in July suspended Chennai Super Kings and Rajasthan Royals for two years for the 2013 IPL betting scandal.
(With inputs from Rica Roy)