Anurag Thakur

Anurag Thakur played a Ranji Trophy match against Jammu & Kashmir in November 2000 when he was the president of HPCA. He has played one match in first-class cricket representing Himachal Pradesh and leading the team as captain in a match against Jammu and Kashmir in the 2000/2001 season. Jammu and Kashmir won by 4 wickets. He picked himself for the match so as to fulfill the BCCI criterion (which requires state administrators to have at least one first-class match experience) for becoming a selector at the state level. After the match, he appointed himself as the chairman of selectors of HPCA Ranji trophy cricket team. [12]

He was involved in a legal struggle between the Himachal Pradesh State Government and the Himachal Pradesh Cricket Association over the rights to the International Cricket Stadium at Dharamshala[13].

He was the President of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) until Supreme Court of India sacked Anurag Thakur as president on 02/01/2017. Early on in his administrative tenure, he gained fame for possibly being the first cricketer to have made his first-class debut after taking over as the President of the Himachal Pradesh Cricket Association (HPCA) in July 2000, at which time his father was the Chief Minister of Himachal Pradesh. This debut was his one and only first-class cricket match. This experience in first-class cricket enabled his induction into the BCCI national junior selection committee, satisfying the condition that only first-class players could be national selectors.[14]

Thakur continued to rise up the ranks in cricketing administration bodies to the position of Secretary for BCCI.[15] On 22 May 2016, Thakur became the president of BCCI, and in January 2017, he was removed from the post by the Supreme Court from the post of BCCI president for not complying with its orders and making false statements under oath before the Supreme Court[16]. The Supreme Court gave its ruling on the Lodha Committee’s third status report, submitted on 14 November 2016, asking for the disqualification of office-bearers of the BCCI and all state associations, who became ineligible as per the Apex Court’s 18 July 2016 order [17].