N Srinivasan can breathe a sigh of relief. By not raising their voice against him, members of the Board of Control for Cricket (BCCI) India have shown that there is no threat to its president's chair.
Till Saturday, there were vibes in Kolkata — where many of the board members are for the IPL final — that a motion againt Srinivasan was taking shape. Some of the board members had even discussed whether it was possible to corner Srinivasan on the basis of the happenings of the last few days. In the end, it fizzled out by Saturday night.
"Who will bell the cat?" said a member of the Cricket Association of Bengal (CAB), which invited the board members to a dinner on Saturday. "Even though some of the members felt Srinivasan should take moral responsibility of all that has heppened and step down, nobody had the guts to go up to him say this," added the CAB member. If the views of a longtime board insider is to be believed, Srinivasan cleared the toughest test of his life in flying colours also because no prominent face accepted the challenge of taking him on. This indicates that either a majority of the members are with him or they are too timid to tell him to quit.
"It's not possible for representatives of states like Tripura or Goa to generate support against a heavyweight. You need a person of some stature to do that. The absence of a figure like that was a major reason why it was not possible to build a motion against him," said the insider.
On the only occasion in recent memory when a BCCI stalwart was overpowered, Jagmohan Dalmiya faced a strong rebellion led by Sharad Pawar in 2005. The insider was probably correct in saying that the situation was different this time.
By the time the invitees came to dinner, it had become clear that the 'Kolkata Coup' was not happening. This became evident at an informal meeting post dinner, which was convened to judge what the members felt. Srinivasan must have gone to bed peacefully.