Two BCCI officials wanted Sourav Ganguly to deliver the prestigious MAK Pataudi lecture

BCCI officials' email exchange over the choice of speaker reveal Ganguly's name on the list.

Kevin Pietersen has been chosen by BCCI to deliver the Pataudi lecture | Getty

The clash of opinions among the BCCI officials isn’t something new and now the news has emerged out that there were two office-bearers who wanted the legendary India captain Sourav Ganguly to deliver this year’s MAK Pataudi lecture.

As per the reports in Times of India, BCCI’s acting secretary Amitabh Choudhary was against Kevin Pietersen being invited to deliver the lecture and had instead thought of former India cricketers such as Nari Contractor, Chandu Borde, Erapalli Prasanna and Abbas Ali Baig.

Reports further suggest that both BCCI’s acting-president CK Khanna and acting-treasurer Anirudh Chaudhry suggested Ganguly’s name as their first choice ahead of Pietersen, who eventually became BCCI's choice.

“Undoubtedly, all suggested speakers are good orators. I would go ahead with Sourav Ganguly and Kumar Sangakkara,” Khanna wrote while referring to the list of speakers’ names, as quoted by TOI.

Khanna’s first choice was endorsed by Chaudhary. “I would recommend topic number 2 to be delivered by speaker number 1 or speaker number 3. Would be very interesting,” he said.

On the other hand, the Supreme Court appointed Committee of Administrators (CoA) for BCCI maintained that it’s a non-issue.

“We do not propose to complicate things for you. Diana and I are not privy to any discussion/consultation which took place in Bengaluru. Since we were not in the loop, our suggestion followed. Four names were proposed to us by you. We picked one name out of those. Since you are already following up on that name, please continue to do so. Failing his availability, I am open to any name that is suggested. These are non-issues on which evolving a consensus should not be a problem,” CoA chairman Vinod Rai wrote to BCCI's general manager Saba Karim.

 
 

By Salman Anjum - 20 May, 2018

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