Who can be N Srinivasan's successor if he step down as BCCI president?

N Srinivasan

In the wake of the Supreme Court’s asking current Board of Control for Cricket in India(BCCI) president Narayanswamy Srinivasan to step down to facilitate a fair and impartial investigation into alleged betting and spot-fixing in last year’s Indian Premier League (IPL), failing which the apex court has threatened to “pass an order” to the same effect, it is believed that Srinivasan will not take on the courts and step down instead.

The main concern of the man from Chennai and other senior BCCI officials is to avoid a 2004-like situation when the Supreme Court appointed its own administrator to run the cricket board in the interim. Even as Jagmohan Dalmiya and Sharad Pawar were engaged in a bitter power struggle, the court decided to appoint Supreme Court Judge S Mohan as an interim administrator.

Chaotic scenes followed as Dalmiya got an obtained a stay on his appointment from the Supreme Court. A re-election ensued and Pawar’s appointment as the president got delayed by one year.

It is unlikely that Srinivasan will be such a risk at this stage with the BCCI enjoying a huge clout with the ICC thanks to a strong president at the helm.

“We would like to avoid a situation like in 2004, so it is possible that the president might act accordingly in the best interest of Indian cricket,” a BCCI official told ESPNcricinfo.

Another senior board official said Srinivasan was too “intelligent” to take on the court. “Will he take the risk … especially after what happened in the case of the Sahara owner Subrata Roy earlier this month? [The Supreme Court ordered Roy to be arrested after he failed to attend court hearings, and Roy is still in custody pending bail.] I don’t think so,” the board official said. “Mr Srinivasan is too intelligent to defy the court’s order.”

Should Srinivasan opt to step down from his post, a new president will have to be elected by the Board members who will continue to remain the president till the next Annual General Meeting(AGM) in September 2014. With the BCCI following a zonal rotation policy with regard to the president’s post and this being the final year of the South Zone’s term, the zonal members from Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh, Kerala and Goa will have the right to nominate a new member for the president’s post.

The norms set by the BCCI for someone to contest the Presidential election are :

• the candidate should be past or present office-bearer or vice-president of the Board
• the candidate must be nominated by at least one Full Member of the zone (South in this case) whose turn is current as per the principle of zonal rotation
• the candidate must have attended two annual general meetings representing a Full Member.

Former India off-spinner Shivlal Yadav, who is believed to be a Srinivasan loyalist, meets all the above requirements and is being touted as the next president of the BCCI should Srinivasan resign. Yadav has previouslly chaired a the working committee meeting in January when Srinivasan couldn’t attend it following his mother’s death.

Instead of taking on the Supreme Court and risking an outsider being appointed as the interim president, Srinivasan might just play his cards smartly and allow one of his own men to take over the president’s post for 6 months. After September 2014, it will be the turn of the East Zone to elect a president.