Anurag Thakur Becomes BCCI President At Age 41

Anurag Thakur has been elected unopposed as the new president of the Board of Control for Cricket in India. Thakur, who is also a BJP MP, becomes the second-youngest president of the Board at the age of 41. The youngest was Fateh Singh Gaekwad, who became the BCCI president in 1963 at the age of 33.

Thakur was all set to be elected president of the BCCI after Shashank Manohar stepped down from the post to become the first independent chairman of the International Cricket Council. The BCCI posted the announcement on their official Twitter handle (@BCCI)

BCCI members congratulating Shri @ianuragthakur on becoming the President pic.twitter.com/aprF04Aniq

- BCCI (@BCCI) May 22, 2016

Shri @ianuragthakur elected as BCCI President pic.twitter.com/NSRwy2i9Au

- BCCI (@BCCI) May 22, 2016

Thakur, who resigned as the secretary of the Board, got the signatures of all six east zone units in his BCCI presidential nomination form, as he completed the formalities in presence of former India captain and CAB president Sourav Ganguly.

The Maharashtra Cricket Association chief and business magnate Ajay Shirke expectedly filled in the Secretary's post which was left vacant by Thakur's resignation yesterday.

Senior BCCI vice-president CK Khanna chaired the Special General Meeting (SGM) and announced Thakur's name for the top job.

Cricket Association of Bengal, Assam CA, Tripura CA, NCC and Jharkhand SCA signed his nomination papers.

Thakur takes over  reins of the embattled Board in rather tough times as the BCCI is facing heat from the Supreme Court to implement the Justice RM Lodha Committee's recommendations for sweeping reforms.

Thakur, incidentally, will go into the books as the first first-class cricketer to turn BCCI president after Raj Singh Dungarpur lay down office in 1998-99.

Although cricket legend Sunil Gavaskar had held the post jointly with another Test cricketer Shivlal Yadav briefly, specifically in charge of IPL affairs, that had been done at the direction of the Supreme Court which ordered then President N Srinivasan to step aside in the wake of the 2013 IPL betting and spot-fixing scandal.

While Raj had played 86 first-class matches for Rajasthan and the then Madhya Bharat as a medium pacer and also claimed 206 wickets, Thakur has represented HP in a lone Ranji Trophy game as a right-hand batsman and off break bowler in 2000-11 season.

Thakur is also the third person backed by East Zone to be elected to the top post during the 2016-1017 period.

Jagmohan Dalmiya, who was the consensus candidate after Srinivasan's exit, died in office last year and Manohar took over in October, 2015.

- With Inputs From PTI-