Pataudi

Calcutta/New Delhi: The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), on Tuesday, clarified that the India-England Test series, in India, is played for the Anthony De Mello Trophy, in the name of the first secretary of the Board.

The Board’s clarification comes after Sharmila Tagore told a television channel that she has written a letter to the BCCI president Narayanswamy Srinivasan expressing her displeasure over the BCCI’s reluctance to officially name the upcoming series after her late husband, Mansur Ali Khan ‘Tiger’ Pataudi.

The Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) had commissioned the Pataudi Trophy in 2007 in honour of the former Indian captain, to be presented to the winning captain at the end of future England-India Test series, in England.

“The India-England Test Series in India is played for the Anthony De Mello trophy instituted in 1951 in the name of the first secretary of the BCCI, recognising his contribution to Indian cricket,” a BCCI media release said.

“In 2007, when the MCC proposed the institution of Pataudi Trophy for the England-India series, the BCCI had clarified that the trophy is already named after Anthony De Mello.”

For the record, in 2011, Tiger had travelled to England against medical advice to hand over the Pataudi Trophy to the Andrew Strauss & Co.

He took ill after returning and was hospitalised. He never returned home from Sir Ganga Ram Hospital, where he passed away on September 22.

Sharmila, in an email sent to Srinivasan on November 2, had also written on the delay in formalising a Pataudi Memorial Lecture in the late cricketer’s honour and its reluctance in resolving a few legal issues involving her late husband.

“Prof (Ratnakar) Shetty had written to me… I had written back to Srinivasan asking him whether the family has any role to play, to which he had replied that the family will not have any role to play. But it will happen every year... This when BCCI honours every player!

“It has been more than a year or so, and that is where it stands now. No response… Nobody has called me. I have given them my number. They might be busy. I don’t know… But no one has called me or written back to me,” Sharmila said.

“I have sent a word to them via friends, so I don’t know what they are thinking. I would be happy if they let me know whether it is happening or not… I won’t pursue it then,” she added.