Sourav Ganguly as BCCI President: Hit or a miss?

Cricket fans always follow the latest news and events to get exclusive Fantasy Cricket Tips and focus on developing a winning strategy. Recently, Sourav Ganguly has stepped down as the BCCI president and is replaced by Roger Binny, a veteran Indian cricketer. Sourav Ganguly has always been the heartthrob on the field, commonly known as Dada among the cricket fans of India and abroad. His magical strokes made the ball find the gaps in the off-side. His tussle with Greg Chappell while playing as one of the opening batsmen in the Indian cricket team brought down a controversy.

Eventually, the world understood his remarkable skills as a batsman and then as the captain of the Indian cricket team. Remember the time when he flung his jersey standing at the pavilions in Lords? Those were the days. He took over the responsibility when the Indian cricket team was riddled by the match-fixing allegations. He was the perfect fit in terms of being fearless on and off the ground and making bold decisions to raise the bar for the Indian cricket team. Along with Anil Kumble and Sachin Tendulkar, he constructed a brilliant Indian cricket team from scratch and let the young blood take over. His remarkable career is still a fascination for Indian cricket players and admirers.

Career Brief of Sourav Ganguly as the BCCI President

It was in 2019 he became one of the nominees for the BCCI president role. When asked by the press, he said that he was going to change the time after getting selected for this prestigious position in BCCI. The cricket board was not doing well back then. Its decisions on selecting players for various cricket tours and international events were not impressive. The board needed an image and also a flag bearer to take charge. He competed with Brijesh Patel and won. His presidential nominee made him the head of this organization in 2019. He expressed his pride in becoming the president after being a commendable cricketer for India. He was 47 years when he took over this position and pledged to make it better. He joined the office in the month of July. He clearly mentioned that his prime aim would be to look after the first-class cricketers and to make significant changes that the Committee of Administrators (CoA) failed to make in 33 months.

Let us check his hits and falls during the tenure of four years as the BCCI president

The Hits

• The IPL Brand Image

He even increased the list of teams from eight to ten. Under his leadership, two new teams were added, which are Gujarat Titans and Lucknow Super Giants. These teams were bought at a whopping sum of INR 12,150 Crore. This addition of two new teams increased the valuation of IPL by 7%. It reached the mark of US$ 4.7 Billion. The media rights were sold to the top channels and brands in exchange for an astronomical figure.

• The Indian Women's Cricket Team

In 2020-21, Sourav brought down a huge change in Indian Women's Cricket history. He increased the match fee allocated for the Indian women cricketers. They were paid INR 6250 for a T20 match and INR 12,500 for a one-day match. Now, the players fetch INR 20,000 for each match.

• Men's Cricket in the right direction

The Indian Premier League (IPL) has turned out to be a staple for almost all Indians. Even fans from the rest of the world remain hooked during the high-octane matches. The biggest challenge Sourav faced during his tenure as the BCCI president was the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite the setback, Sourav did not lose his significant skills of leadership and kept on working for the branding of IPL. Ranji Trophy was postponed. It was under his supervision that the IPL was conducted in the UAE. BCCI worked really hard to keep the players safe during the pandemic and conduct this world-class phenomenon overseas.

The Misses

• Indian Women's Cricket

The Indian Women's team held the 2nd position in the T20 World Cup 2020 conducted in Australia. The prize money was transferred to the BCCI for the players. The players got their prize money for their historic performance in 2021. Not only this, the Indian women's cricket team did not play a single domestic or international game, whereas the IPL was conducted in the UAE. The reason shown was related to logistics, but it was not actually the case.

• Releasing Virat Kohli as Indian Captain

The invisible heat between Virat Kohli and Sourav Ganguly took an ugly turn when the former was sacked from his captaincy of the ODI team. As per the news, Ganguly requested Kohli not to step down, but it was denied by the latter.

• Meeting denials by Sourav Ganguly

The meetings held by the BCCI for picking the squad for various international tours were attended by Sourav. He denied that he was not part of the team-picking venture even though pictures were released showing his presence.

• Unfulfilled promises to first-class players

The contracts he promised to the first-class players did not see the daylight. Sourav claimed it to be his biggest priority to introduce a contract system for first-class players. Eventually, these promises remained unfulfilled, and he stepped down as the BCCI president. Cricket players and admirers expected empathy from someone who faced Greg Chappell.

Wrapping up

The BCCI presidential tenure of the great former Indian captain Sourav Ganguly has its ups and downs. After all, he did his best to make Indian cricket shine at the world-class platform but also missed to fulfill his promises at some point.