Saba Karim, the General Manager of Cricket Operations for the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has reportedly quit his position and a formal announcement is expected to be made soon, as per the report in The Times of India.
His exit from the BCCI comes just after a week when the board let go of their CEO Rahul Johri. Notably, both Johri and Karim assumed office in December 2017. While Johri had submitted his resignation in December last year, he was asked to complete his term and finally the board has accepted a long-pending resignation last week.
However, according to the earlier reports, GM Cricket Operations’ position has come under the scanner during the time of the global pandemic COVID-19 as he failed to help much. Moreover, IANS had earlier reported that a senior board executive confirmed that Saba Karim’s position is at risk as there have been too many issues which come which fall under the GM Cricket Operations remained unattended.
Along with this, keeping the economic condition in mind, a tough call is expected to be taken soon by the board. While Cricket Australia CEO Kevin Roberts quit after failing to handle the economic setback due to the COVID-19, CA also let go its head of female engagement Sarah Styles.
On the other hand, The ECB handed pay cuts to its employees with CEO Tom Harrison agreed to a 25 per cent reduction. Even the players (both men and women) agreed to this pay cut in response to the global pandemic outbreak.
While Saba Karim wasn’t invited in the Apex Council meeting on Friday, it was K.V.P. Rao who discussed the roadmap for domestic cricket with the officials.
“Saba was not invited to present the changes in BCCI domestic structure at the recently concluded Apex Council meeting. Instead, Rao made the presentation, making it clear what was in store. His appointment has been in scrutiny since the office bearers took over last year. The eligibility was tweaked to suit him in a closed-door meeting between Vinod Rai and Rahul Johri after the appointment process had commenced. This severely disadvantaged the others who had the same qualifications but weren’t even aware that they could apply,” the official explained to IANS.
“It is learnt that the outgoing women selectors have accused Saba of bullying and interfering in the selection matters. His mishandling a national team came to the fore when Mithali Raj, an international icon, time and again said that she was dragged into the controversy where she was pitted against Harmanpreet Kaur after she confided in Saba,” he concluded.
