The Supreme Court has made its stand clear, BCCI president N Srinivasan cannot continue in the position and has to be replaced by any "seasoned or respected cricketer" and recommended Sunil Gavaskar for the post.
The big proposal by the SC also asked to keep out Chennai Super Kings and Rajasthan Royals from IPL 7. Also, the court has suggested all employees of India Cements, which is headed by Srinivasan and (the court's proceedings revealed) MS Dhoni is the vice-president, need to be distanced from the Indian Cricket Board. These announcements came during the hearing on Thursday and the SC has given a day's time for the BCCI to decide.
The hearing on Friday will see if the IPL will continue as planned or if there will be major blows handed to the tournament. A six-team IPL could bring down the number of matches from 60 to 34 which could distress long-term sponsors and contracts. "No one anticipated the court's proposal to suspend the two teams," a senior board official was quoted as saying by ESPNcricinfo. "It would be really difficult to redraw plans, especially considering that the tournament is supposed to start within three weeks.
"The logistical and financial problems can, however, be solved, but what can be done about the players? It would be unfair on almost all of the 50-odd players from these two teams to be deprived, for no fault of theirs, of the opportunity to play the tournament and earn their livelihood."
Talking of the players not found guilty, Justice Mukul Mudgal said the players shouldn't suffer and the court has not passed its final order yet. He also said the proposals of the SC were only meant to "elicit response" from the BCCI.
"It has not been ordered. I'm sure the court will look at all the ifs and buts and the pros and cons before actually passing any order," Mudgal told ESPNcricinfo. "This is only to elicit the response of the BCCI, according to me. There are clean players, too. I'm sure the court will take that into consideration."
BCCI counsel CA Sundaram told the court that they would consider all the recommendations made by the court and that they were open for a time-bound investigation during which period N Srinivasan would not be in charge.
Meanwhile, Sunil Gavaskar was open to fill in as the president as long as the court asked him to. Gavaskar is currently contracted to the BCCI as a commentator and analyst.
"If the Supreme Court asks me to do something I will do it," Gavaskar told NDTV. "There is no question about it. I will be very happy to do it. I will just consider it a huge privilege and a huge honour, the Supreme Court feels I'm good enough to handle that interim job.
"But it has to also to be put on record that I am contracted to BCCI TV to do television commentary. If after that the honourable Supreme Court tells me to do that, then quite clearly you have little choice left."
However, Shivlal Yadav, a senior vice-president of the BCCI, and from the South, is considered to be the front-runner for the post as per the board's constitution since Gavaskar, as an outsider, cannot be directly appointed president unless a court order says so.
