Murmurs of Sourav Ganguly’s return as Cricket Association of Bengal (CAB) president resonated through the state body even during this year’s IPL matches at Eden Gardens.
On Tuesday night, an hour or two after the CAB’s apex body meeting at the Eden, Sourav told the media that he will be filing his nomination for the presidential post.
According to well-placed sources in the CAB, there are high chances of Sourav being elected president “unopposed” for the second time. “Given the situation, that’s what will happen most likely,” a senior CAB official told The Telegraph on Thursday.
Sourav was CAB president from mid-2015 to October 2019.
It obviously won’t be a new experience altogether for Sourav, who took charge of the BCCI from October 2019 to 2022. However, this time around, there are challenges at CAB that await the former India captain.
Among those is to address corruption within the association as well as in club cricket and bring the corrupt to book so that the association’s image is not tarnished.
Lately, there have been allegations of embezzlement of funds against two senior office-bearers and a committee member. Given Sourav’s
stature, he certainly won’t want such allegations to be rampant during his tenure
as CAB boss.
Successful hosting of the India-South Africa Test at the Eden from November 14 and the T20 World Cup games the venue hosts will also be on his checklist. It was learnt that the Eden will not be undergoing any massive overhaul before the T20 showpiece,
except some fine-tuning. However, under his reign, Sourav would certainly want the Eden to be ready so that at least a semi-final — alongside one marquee India game — is allotted to the venue.
But more than that, infrastructure investments to lift the standards of the respective Bengal teams and the aspect of basic player welfare, which senior pro Anustup Majumdar had pointed out in a recent interview to The Telegraph, are also part of his tasks ahead.
Under Sourav’s leadership, the CAB needs to come up with a new ground or a pitch so that players can practise well, especially during off-season and pre-season.
The Bengal Cricket Academy ground in Kalyani needs a facelift as well. The poor facilities there, coupled with administrative fatigue, robbed Bengal of crucial points in their Ranji Trophy clash against Bihar.
Sourav also needs a group of efficient people working alongside him this time. Current tours and fixtures committee chairman Sanjoy Das, former apex body member Subrata Saha, current umpires’ committee chairman Prasenjit Banerjee and former joint-secretary Bablu Koley are the people Sourav is known to trust for their efficiency.