Trinamul Congress leader and Team Pakistan’s local manager Sultan Ahmed escorts star bowler Shoaib Akhtar to the hotel on Tuesday. Picture by Santosh Ghosh

The man who admitted to playing a role in last week’s mob violence in the city is playing a different game this week — as the local manager of Team Pakistan.

Though Sultan Ahmed, the Trinamul Congress general secretary, doesn’t want to talk about the dramatic role reversal, he is clearly proud of his present assignment.

“It’s not about wanting to be the local manager of the touring team. I have been given this responsibility by the Cricket Association of Bengal (CAB) and am determined to execute it well,” says Ahmed, who wields considerable clout on the Maidan as secretary of Mohammedan Sporting Club.

“I have been the local manager for touring Pakistani teams on two previous occasions — in 1999 during the Test series and again in 2004, when the Pakistani team had come to the city during BCCI’s platinum jubilee,” recounts Ahmed.

From receiving the team at the airport on Tuesday afternoon to coordinating with the CAB to arranging for doctors for Shoaib Akhtar — Ahmed had his hands full on Day One of his assignment.

The local manager must be kept posted by the Pakistani players about every move they make — scheduled and unscheduled — during their nine-day stay in the city.

Till December 5, Ahmed will be meeting the cricketers every morning and evening. The team management will be in constant touch with him — and the other local manager, Debasish Ganguly — for everything.

“Yes, I will be busy. But politics will not take a backseat,” assures Ahmed, who has been in the spotlight after admitting that his boys took part in last Wednesday’s violence that forced a curfew in parts of Calcutta.

Senior Calcutta police officers have told Metro they want to interrogate Ahmed for more information on the riots.

Ahmed, for now, has only cricket on his mind. “We want the touring team to leave with happy memories. It is satisfying when things go according to plan and without any hitch,” sums up Ahmed.