Shashank Manohar likely to quit top BCCI post mid-May
Manohar, who is on a holiday in Mahabaleshwar, near Pune - his annual summer destination - is most likely to return in a week and hang his BCCI boots. Having taken the president’s post in October last year, his resignation could mark the second shortest stint for a BCCI president in recent years after Jagmohan Dalmiya’s stretch that lasted only six months from March to September 2015 until he passed away.
Manohar is tight-lipped on the issue and even his closest confidantes in Indian cricket administration haven’t heard from him in recent days. If he takes over as the ICC’s independent chairman in May 2016, he’ll be eligible to hold the post till 2021.
Those close to Manohar, and tracking his current stint vis-vis world cricket affairs, say: “In the present scenario, he (Manohar) knows he can’t do much in the BCCI with the way the Supreme Court is viewing things.” Worse, he’s convinced that even the Vidarbha Cricket Association (VCA) – the association Manohar represents - could be badly affected.
“The ICC post gives him a stable five-year window and an opportunity to make history as possibly the administrator who brought all countries (member boards of the ICC) together, and struck off the so-called monopoly of the Big Three. Look how the West Indies and Pakistan boards have already started praising him for what he’s done.”
More individuals to quit…
Those in the know of developments say the BCCI can expect more resignations than just Manohar’s. “For a lot of professionals who were employed on a salaried or contract basis this could be their last IPL. Quite a few of them will soon be on their way out.”
The BCCI has its own professional unit that works on Indian cricket commitments and the Indian Premier League (IPL). While the board may have decided not to retain its own set of commentators from this year, there are others who feel the time has come to move out of the existing set-up.
A high-level and a long-time professional working in the current BCCI set-up could soon be among the first to quit but has requested anonymity for now.
The new million-dollar-baby…
The newly hired CEO of the BCCI, Rahul Johri, is learnt to be coming on board with a significant annual compensation package. Johri, say sources, has managed to bargain a package of pay and perks close to USD one million per annum. The figure was divulged during a conversation with a leading BCCI official and even if exaggerated, Johri is still expected to be a top-drawer professional like nobody else, now or before, in the Indian cricket administration.
RR pay annual franchise fee
The Rajasthan Royals have paid their annual franchise fee under protest, just like the Chennai Super Kings had done a couple of months ago.
Despite being suspended by the Supreme Court for two years in the backdrop of the spot-fixing scandal, the franchises were asked to pay their franchise instalment by the BCCI. CSK had done it earlier, but under protest, and now so have the Royals.