Leading BCCI not as challenging as captaining the Indian team- Sourav Ganguly

Ganguly also spoke about Women's IPL and Ranji Trophy.

Sourav Ganguly is a true legend of Indian cricket and said that he found captaining the Indian team more challenging when compared to his ongoing tenure as the president of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI).

Ganguly is regarded as one of the best captains India has produced and is credited with changing the outlook of Indian cricket after the match-fixing scandal in the 2000s. After retiring from the game in 2008, he became an administrator by winning the election for the President of Cricket Association of Bengal (CAB).

Finally, he became the President of the BCCI and has seen many upheavals in Indian cricket including many controversies as well.

BCCI President Sourav Ganguly reveals planned starting date for Ranji Trophy 2022

“I don’t think it’s more challenging. What’s my legacy? Well, I won’t be able to tell it now. Let’s see what happens. It is for you all to judge my legacy, it is what it is. But it has been under tough circumstances due to COVID-19 over the last two years. The pandemic has wreaked havoc all over the world and we are fortunate that we could still manage to get a majority of cricket done,” Ganguly told Sportstar.

Ganguly also opined on the resumption of the Ranji Trophy after a two-year gap, saying that he was optimistic that things will eventually fall into place.

“Obviously, we missed one year of Ranji Trophy – the 2020-21 season. It is the most important tournament in India, and we always wanted to organise it. But what the world has seen in the last two years, I don’t think it has happened in anybody’s lifetime.

So keeping all these things in mind, it was actually a challenge to organize any tournament. We organized the Cooch Behar Trophy and there came the third wave. On the first day itself, 50 players contracted the virus. So, it is not easy. But we are lucky that we can still conduct tournaments. We still have our fingers crossed that everything goes smoothly,” Ganguly said.

"His decision is a personal one" Sourav Ganguly says BCCI respects Virat Kohli's decision to quit as Test captain

The BCCI President also gave an update on implementing the contract system in the domestic circuit.

He said: “[Last year] we did not go the contract way because that was suggested by the State associations. But you must have noticed that we have created payment slabs as we did for the Ranji Trophy. We have increased the money to almost double, so their salaries have increased almost twice. So, we have done that. We thought the best option was to increase the match fee. Just like it happens in the contract system, if you play a certain number of matches, you get paid a certain amount of money. We have created that slab, but we have compensated the players almost double.”

Ganguly also confirmed that the Women’s T20 challenge will be back this year and on the possibility of hosting a full-fledged Women’s IPL in the future.

“Yes, of course, they will. The Women’s T20 Challenge will again be back this year in the month of May. Hopefully, in the future, we will be able to host a bigger women’s IPL once the number of women players [player pool] goes up. But this year, the Women’s T20 Challenge will happen during the IPL playoffs,” he revealed.

(Sportstar inputs)