Sourav Ganguly Is The First Player To Become BCCI President After 65 Years

Officially, on Wednesday, Sourav Ganguly has become the first Indian Cricketer to be the president of the Board of Control for Cricket in India in the last 65 years. In total, he is 2nd cricketer after Maharaja of Vizianagaram, who was the first cricketer to take the BCCI president role.

Former India captain Sourav Ganguly on Wednesday took over as the BCCI’s 39th president, becoming the biggest name to head the world’s richest cricket board. The 47-year-old Ganguly was officially entrusted with the task of heading Indian cricket for the next nine months at the BCCI’s General Body meeting.

Only once before had an India cricketer achieved the rare double. Maharaja of Vizianagaram, who led India in a Test tour to England in 1936.

Despite playing only 3 Test matches for India, the Maharaja of Vizianagaram served as BCCI president between 1954 and 1956. Prominently, former India captain Sunil Gavaskar and Shivlal Yadav have also served as interim BCCI presidents in 2014.

The former India captain will have to depart office next July due to compulsory cooling-off period in the new constitution. It forces an official to step down from the administrative role after six years. Ganguly has been working as president of Cricket Association of Bengal (CAB) for the last 5 years.

We have to get the house in order – Sourav Ganguly

During his tenure, Ganguly will look to coordinate with old guard such as former President N Srinivasan and ex-Secretary Niranjan Shah, whose children are now part of the BCCI. His tenure begins at a time when the International Cricket Council has left India out of its newly-formed working group, which might affect the country’s share in the ICC revenue.

“As a team, we have a lot of things to look after actually. We have to get the house in order, administration in order and most importantly cricket on the field. The cricket has been brilliant on the field since we crashed out of the World Cup 2019. Hopefully, that will continue. And this is our job to create an environment that the boys can go out and excel themselves,” Ganguly had said after filing his nomination.

In the new organisation, Home Minister Amit Shah’s son Jay Shah took over as the secretary of the board while former president Anurag Thakur’s brother Arun Singh Dhumal became the new treasurer.

Kerala’s veteran administrator Jayesh George was named the joint secretary while Mahim Verma of Uttarakhand became the new vice-president.