Reports regarding veiled defiance by the disqualified cricket officials have not gone well with the Lodha Committee.
According to sources, even the remaining Board officials stand divided on the course of action.
Conflicting reports have appeared in the media concerning the stand that the sacked Board officials have been planning.
There have been suggestions to deny the infrastructure and embarrass the officials engaged in conducting domestic and international matches under instructions from the Lodha Panel.
“Each step that impedes the smooth functioning of the administration would amount to contempt of Supreme Court. It will be seen as sabotaging the court order,” cautioned a source close to the Lodha Panel.
It was learnt by Sportstar on Saturday that the majority does not favour another confrontation with the judiciary. A senior Board official conceded, “It will harm the image of the game if matches are disrupted. But these suggestions certainly would not have come from the recent Board president who has been a cricketer himself.”
Denying stadium for matches and springing a new league are some of the steps that the sacked Board officials are reported to have been mulling. A recently-removed Board official is said to have gone to the extent of putting a spanner in the works ahead of the coming limited one-day series by suggesting that England stays home.
It may be mentioned that a similar effort was made to stall the third Test between India and New Zealand in Indore in October last year. But better sense had prevailed and the Madhya Pradesh Cricket Association (MPCA) did an excellent job of staging its first ever Test.
There were murmurs of the forthcoming Ranji Trophy final between Mumbai and Gujarat in Indore from January 10 being disrupted but all efforts have been made to conduct the much-awaited contest. For Gujarat it is the team’s maiden entry to the final of the Ranji Trophy.
The fiasco ahead of the selection meetings in Mumbai on Friday have been taken note of by the Lodha Panel, which is meeting on January 11 to take stock of the situation. There was no dissent as far as the selection meetings were concerned because all 10 selectors — senior and junior — signed the papers before leaving the venue in Mumbai.
The senior selectors had met to pick the India team for the limited-overs series against England while the junior committee had identified 25 talented players to assess their fitness for some forthcoming assignments.
Even as some cricket officials met in Bengaluru on Saturday, the move itself was seen in cricket circles as irrelevant to the on-going process of setting the administration in place.
It is learnt that 18 State associations have fallen in line with the reforms suggested and approached the Lodha Panel for guidance in implementing the Supreme Court ruling. Much clarity on the way forward is expected to be known on January 11 when the Lodha Panel shows the road map for the future.
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