After being denied the opportunity to be the Board of Control for Cricket in India’s (BCCI) president for a second term, former India captain Sourav Ganguly has thrown his hat in the ring for the Cricket Association of Bengal polls. In a text message to The Indian Express, Ganguly confirmed that he would be contesting for the post of CAB president. CAB polls are scheduled to be held on October 31.
Ganguly wanted to continue as BCCI president but was offered the post of Indian Premier League chairman, which he declined. The BCCI had also made it clear that it would not back the former India captain for the post of ICC chairman.
If elected during the CAB elections, it will be Ganguly’s second term as CAB president. He was the president from 2015 to 2019 before moving to the BCCI.
Ganguly seems to have had a change of mind now that he is contesting for the post of CAB president. Earlier this week at a bank’s promotional event, Ganguly said: “You can’t play forever. You can’t be an administrator forever, but it’s been fun doing both and seeing both sides of the coin. I will go for bigger things in future.”
The BCCI will hold its annual general meeting in Mumbai on October 18 and those who have filed their nominations – among others former all-rounder Roger Binny for president and Jay Shah for secretary — are set to be elected unopposed.
The BCCI election next Tuesday is expected to be a formality since none of the office-bearers’ posts had more than one nomination. Rajya Sabha member of parliament Rajeev Shukla is set to retain his post as vice-president. BCCI will have two new faces as office-bearers. Mumbai’s BJP chief
Ashish Shelar will be treasurer while Assam Cricket Association’s Devajit Saikia is the new joint secretary.
At the promotional event, Ganguly reflected on his time as BCCI president. “I did eight years of administration. I was president of the Cricket Association of Bengal, then became president of the BCCI. All these have tenures and you have to go after finishing it. But I feel the challenge as a cricketer was a lot more. When you do backroom work, sitting on tables and running the game, you have time to correct things.
“But if you nicked a delivery from Glenn McGrath on the first morning of a Test, you are out, you didn’t have the time to correct it – I think that’s the major difference. But when you do administration, you realise that you contribute so much, you could make things better for a cricketer, and me being a player who played for a long period of time, I understood that.”