Anurag Thakur and secretary Ajay Shirke have been sacked by the Supreme Court

The Board of Control for Cricket president Anurag Thakur and its secretary Ajay Shirke have been sacked by the Supreme Court today. For failing to implement the reforms suggested by the RM Lodha panel, the BCCI will now have an observer, who will be appointed on January 19. Get highlights of today’s Supreme Court proceedings here.  The names of Sourav Ganguly and Brijesh Patel are doing

the rounds as the next BCCI president. While Ganguly is the president of the Cricket Association of Bengal, Brijesh Patel has run the Karnataka State Cricket Association for a number of years. Ganguly’s CAB was one state unit that was willing to implement the Lodha reforms. The former Indian captain was also part of the Justice Mukul Mudgal panel that probed the 2013 IPL betting and spotfixing case.

 Both BCCI vice-presidents have to give an undertaking that they will abide by all the Lodha panel recommendations. The BCCI has five vice-presidents -- ML Nehru (North Zone), Dr G. Gangaraju (South), Gautam Roy (East), TC Mathew (West) and CK Khanna (Central).

Interestingly, when N. Srinivasan was asked to step aside as BCCI president during the IPL spot-fixing and betting hearing in 2015, the Supreme Court had appointed senior VP Shivlal Yadav to run the Board’s affairs. Sunil Gavaskar was asked to oversee the IP affairs that year.

“This is the logical consequence. Once the recommendations were accepted by the court, it had be implemented. There were obstructions, there were impediments ... obviously this had to happen, and it has happened,” former Chief Justice of India RM Lodha, the chairman of the Lodha Committee, said after the court order on January 2. “The Supreme Court itself has ensured that its order of 18 July is now enforced. It’s victory for the game of cricket and it will flourish, administrators come and go, ultimately it is for the game.”

Ajay Shirke remains defiant even after getting the sack. He tells a TV channel: “The court has asked me and Anurag to leave. That is fine. I don’t regret anything. I have no personal ambition.” Shirke added: “I hope the new administration runs the BCCI well.”

The Supreme Court decision means the BCCI will have to enforce age and tenure caps and implement the one-state-one-vote formula. Mumbai Cricket Association’s Sharad Pawar has already resigned as Mumbai president. N. Srinivasan of Tamil Nadu and Niranjan Shah of Saurashtra, both above 70 years, will now have to relinquish their positions. Justice Lodha says, this decision by the Supreme Court will act like a template for all sports federations in India.

Supreme Court asks former Solicitor General of India and senior lawyer Fali Nariman and Gopal Subramanium to assist in selecting an observer for BCCI. The apex court has once again reiterated that all reforms suggested by Lodha panel have to implemented in full. The reforms were made binding on the BCCI in July 2016, but the BCCI kept defying them.