Comrades played super selector to get Dada back

NEW DELHI: The BCCI seems to be having another head office. This one’s based at AKG Bhavan in the Capital, with comrades as selectors. If former cricketer and office-bearer of the Board of Control for Cricket in India is to be believed, it was pressure from CPM that got back Sourav Ganguly into the Indian team.

Rajsingh Dungarpur has claimed the CPM threatened to bring a resolution in Parliament against the board if it did not include Ganguly in the team. Succumbing to pressure from the CPM, BCCI chief Sharad Pawar told Mr Dungarpur that the Bengal cricketer should be brought back into the team. Mr Dungarpur said he told Mr Pawar that he had only one vote as team manager.

However, his message was conveyed at the team’s meeting and Ganguly was back. “Pawar saheb called me up and said that we will have to play Sourav. I said I have got only one vote (as team manager). But he said ‘no, when you discuss a player’s name, he comes into the team. He has to be in the team’,” he said.

Though the CPM and CPI had openly come out in support of Sourav Ganguly, Mr Dungarpur’s revelations made at the launch of writer Suryakant Chaturvedi’s book, All-rounder, here recently, reveals the level of ‘communist intervention’ in the process of selecting a cricket team.

Mr Dungarpur, known for his trademark controversial remarks also said that Rahul Dravid, despite Mr Ganguly being thrust upon him, defended the West Bengal player.

However, the skipper also made it clear to Mr Dungarpur that if political intervention started dictating decisions about the Indian team it would lead to death of the game.

Left parties had even sought an apology from then Indian coach Greg Chappell for his comments against Ganguly, who was dropped from the team in December 2005. The issue was raised in Parliament when a CPM MP demanded an apology from Mr Chappell for terming Sourav as “mentally and physically unfit”.