Anurag Thakur has been elected unopposed as the new president of the Board of Control for Cricket in India. Thakur, who is also a BJP MP, becomes the second-youngest president of the Board at the age of 41.

The youngest was Fateh Singh Gaekwad, who became the BCCI president in 1963 at the age of 33. Thakur resigned from his previous position as the secretary of the Board and completed the formalities in presence of former India captain and CAB president Sourav Ganguly.

Maharashtra Cricket Association chief and business magnate Ajay Shirke filled in the Secretary's post which was left vacant by Thakur's resignation yesterday.

Senior BCCI vice-president CK Khanna chaired the Special General Meeting (SGM) that announced Thakur's name for the post. Cricket Association of Bengal, Assam CA, Tripura CA, NCC and Jharkhand SCA signed his nomination papers.

Thakur takes over the control of the Board in tough times as the BCCI is facing pressure from the Supreme Court to implement Justice RM Lodha Committee's recommendations for big reforms.

Thakur, incidentally, will go into the records as the first first-class cricketer to turn BCCI president after Raj Singh Dungarpur lay down office in 1998-99. Although cricket legend Sunil Gavaskar held the post jointly with another Test cricketer Shivlal Yadav briefly, that was specifically in charge of IPL affairs, and that too at the direction of the Supreme Court after the 2013 betting and spot fixing scandal.

Thakur is also the third person who was backed by East Zone to be elected to this post during this period. Earlier, Jagmohan Dalmiya, who was the BCCI President 
after Srinivasan's exit, died in office last year and Shashank Manohar took over in October, 2015.