Joy Bhattacharjya has donned many hats in a long career in sports management.
Highly regarded in football, cricket and volleyball, Bhattacharjya spoke to players and support staff of Bengal Pro T20 League teams Murshidabad Kings and Kueens — ahead of the tournament’s business end — during a Power Talk Session at a city hotel on Tuesday.
Bhattacharjya, who has served as team director of the Kolkata Knight Riders for quite some time, praised the role of franchise cricket in transforming the cricketing landscape of India.
He highlighted the inception of the Indian Premier League as a pivotal moment in Indian and global cricketing history.
The IPL and the regional franchise T20 tournaments have certainly helped in forming a talent pool for Indian cricket to tap into.
India top-order batsman Sai Sudharshan and leg-spinner Digvesh Rathi, who impressed in a few matches for Lucknow Super Giants in this year’s IPL, came into prominence following their performances in the Tamil Nadu Premier League and the
Delhi Premier League, respectively, with Bhattacharjya citing the duo as prime examples.
“Now, instead of having 80-90 (players) who we are seeing in the IPL, you have 80-90 in almost every state who have a chance to play in the IPL,” Bhattacharjya stated. “All these regional T20 franchise league matches are watched by scouts. They see the players’ technique, six-hitting ability, power-hitting, ability to bowl yorkers... Everything...
“Every team has at least three-four scouts who are watching the videos of these matches. Every IPL team watches the matches of every regional league,” he emphasised.
Bhattacharjya, also the CEO of the Prime Volleyball League, sees “genuine potential” in Indian volleyball and expects an appearance of the country’s volleyball team at the Olympics sometime in the future.
As for Indian football, the former director of the Fifa U-17 World Cup highlighted that India needed to “run twice as fast as other countries”, and called for grassroots reform from the All India Football Federation (AIFF) administration.
“If the way AIFF is run doesn’t change in the next five years, football will remain one of the biggest problems in Indian sport,” Bhattacharjya said.
The writer is an intern with The Telegraph