'Role is that of a nightwatchman' - Vinod Rai

Vinod Rai, the chairman of the court-appointed committee of administrators that will supervise the BCCI till fresh elections are held, has said that the panel will be serve as "very short and interim" body. Along with Rai, the Supreme Court of India appointed senior banker Vikram Limaye, former Indian women's captain Diana Edulji and social historian Ramachandra Guha on the committee of administrators, which will run the BCCI through its chief executive officer Rahul Johri.

Rai summarised the role the committee as that of a "nightwatchman" with the aim of putting in place the pillars of transparency and accountability in order to make the BCCI a professional organisation.

"I look at it as a role of a nightwatchman, in the sense that [the committee's job is] to enable a smooth transition from the BCCI as it is today into the BCCI being run by an elected body," Rai told ESPNcricinfo. "And to put in place structures, systems which will ensure that BCCI is run with transparency and accountability. It is going to be a very short and interim body."

Although the court had assembled an "eminent" panel of administrators, Rai stressed that "we are not long-term administrators" of the game. "It needs to put in hands of the people of merit, people with competence, professionals," he said.

A civil servant from the 1972 batch of the Kerala cadre, Rai originally comes from Lucknow. He has been a civil servant for close to four decades, having worked for the federal government in various capacities. Between 2008 and 2013 May, Rai was the Comptroller and Auditor General of India. Since his retirement, he has served in various facilitating roles with the government-run organisation. He is currently also chairman of the Banks' Board Bureau, which is working on bringing in reforms in the banking sector.

Rai said he was "biting his nails" on Sunday evening while watching Jasprit Bumrah help India edge out England in Nagpur to level the three-match T20 series. Rai played club cricket, but has never dealt with sports administration. Incidentally, this was not the first time the court has appointed Rai in an important advisory role.

In 2014, the court asked Rai to prepare an audit report into the Sri Padmanabha Temple controversy in Thiruvananthapuram. In his findings, Rai noted financial irregularities and corruption among the temple authorities.

In May 2016, Rai was part of the three-man committee appointed by the court to oversee the operations of the Medical Council of India. The brief for that committee was to arrest the corruption and decay prevalent in medical education and the profession in India. That committee was led by RM Lodha, the former Chief Justice of India, who is also chairman of the Lodha Committee.

Rai said that since the court had already "entrusted" him previously with such responsibilities, he was confident about the handling this next challenge. He said the first task was to get acquainted with his panel members. He has already worked with Limaye, the banker on the four-member panel. "We will familiarise ourselves on the team firstly," he said. "We will see what the BCCI administration is all about. We will study very closely the Lodha Committee's recommendations. Then having sensitsed with all this, we will go about the tasks."