Sourav Ganguly has become the most powerful man in Indian cricket after he was chosen as the BCCI President unanimously in a meeting on October 14. However, not many know that until late night on Sunday, October 13, Brijesh Patel was the front runner for the post.

Patel had been the chief of Karnataka Cricket State Association for many a year and had the backing of former President N Srinivasan, but somehow, Ganguly came out of nowhere and became the President after serving as Bengal cricket chief for five years now.

Rajiv Shukla, the former board vice-president said, “Discussions went on late over who to make the BCCI president and who to make the IPL Governing Council chairman between Ganguly and Patel. The decision to make Ganguly the president was, however, unanimous in the end.” Even Ganguly was seemingly surprised at the turn of events, forcing him to say: “Till 10.30 pm last night even I was not even aware of this, till I was told.”

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It seems that the presence of Minister of State for Finance, Anurag Thakur, tilted the scales heavily in favor of Ganguly. It is said that Thakur joined hands with N Srinivasan given that they share a strong dislike for the Committee of Administrators (COA) and backed Ganguly as chief of Indian cricket.

“Thakur rushing to the meeting benefitted Ganguly immensely. Look, both the factions (Thakur’s and Srinivasan’s) were tired of the CoA and criticized the way cricket was being run in this country. They wanted to get rid of it at the earliest. Therefore, there was not much fight over who will contest for what,” an official present at the meeting said.

He further said, “The former BCCI bigwigs didn’t want it to drag on. The old hands of the BCCI said, ‘Make Ganguly president and you (pointing at Patel) can become the IPL chairman’. It was more a selection, not an election. Some compromise had to happen.”

It is understood that Ganguly wasn’t going to settle for anything less than BCCI president, and to make that happen Thakur’s presence helped. However, Patel will in all likelihood take over once Ganguly enters his cooling-off period from cricket administration after August 2020.

(Hindustan Times inputs)