Sanjay Jagdale to be new BCCI secretary

The current BCCI joint secretary Sanjay Jagdale is all set to become the new secretary pipping hot favourite Ranjib Biswal as the media release issued by the board confirmed his nomination for the upcoming Annual General Meeting that will be held in Mumbai on Monday.

The former Madhya Pradesh all-rounder Jagdale has also served as a national selector.

There will be no elections during the 82nd AGM that will be held in Mumbai on Monday with N Srinivasan taking over as the president. Himachal Pradesh Cricket Association boss Anurag Thakur will become the joint secretary while Maharashtra Cricket Association secretary and Sharad Pawar confidant Ajay Shirke will be the treasurer. Rajiv Shukla is set to become the new IPL chairman.

It wasn't exactly a cakewalk for Srinivasan and company as far as the post of secretary is concerned. While Biswal who is a Srinivasan aide was tipped to take over the mantle, his candidature faced strong opposition from the eastern units.

"The Cricket Association of Bengal, Assam Cricket Association and Jharkhand State Cricket Association strongly objected to Biswal being projected as the secretary. In fact JSCA president Amitabh Chaudhry was the choice by eastern states. There was so much of disharmony that Jagdale turned out to be a compromise candidate," a BCCI official in the know of things informed.

It was learnt that Biswal was peeved as he never expected such stiff opposition and even wanted to fight elections but decided otherwise once he came to know that he didn't have mandate to get into straight fight with Jagdale.

Also a compromise theory is doing the rounds that eastern state units who wanted Raja Venkat's ouster finally relented when Srinivasan decided to zero in on Jagdale as the secretary.

It is learnt that Srinivasan had to accept their complaint of Venkat's non-performance as national selector and promised that the former Bengal batsman's performance will be under the scanner for the next one year.

The other thing that became clear was that save Yashpal Sharma who has completed his four-year term, Kris Srikkanth, Venkat, Narendra Hirwani and Surendra Bhave are all set to be retained as selectors.

For North Zone selector's post Vikram Rathour and Sanjeev Sharma are in the running.

The following nominations were confirmed

Hony. Secretary: Sanjay Jagdale, Hony. Joint Secretary: Anurag Thakur, Hony Treasurer: Ajay Shirke

Vice-Presidents: North Zone: Arun Jaitley, South Zone: Shivlal Yadav, East Zone: Chitrak Mitra, West Zone: Niranjan Shah, Central Zone: Sudhir Dabir