DY Patil to host England

“We met BCCI president N Srinivasan this morning and he has agreed to our request to shift the second warm-up game with England from BKC to D Y Patil stadium,” he said. The shifting of the match scheduled from November 3-5 was necessitated as there were a lot of security issues relating to MCA’s BKC ground,said Savant.

“There were a lot of security issues raised by the Mumbai police about holding the match at BKC. They highlighted these security concerns in a letter to us and we decided the best option was to shift the match to D Y Patil stadium in Navi Mumbai,which also comes under our jurisdiction,” he said. This is one area where a lot of people from the suburbs and from in and around Navi Mumbai can come and wartch the England team in action which otherwise they wouldn’t be able to,he said.

The BCCI president was magnanimous enough to accede to our request,Savant added. He said that once a match is allotted by the BCCI to an association,it is the association’s prerogative to hold it at a venue which is preferable. “I don’t know why BKC was chosen earlier,but once the representatives of the England and Wales Cricket Board arrived in Mumbai to inspect the venues of the matches,I wrote to the Board that the match be shifted to D Y Patil stadium,” Savant said.

The BKC ground also lacks facilities for spectators coming to watch the match as there are no toilets and eateries to cater to their needs. Also,there are no proper media facilities,Savant said. England are to reach Mumbai on October 29 and will prepare for the four-Test series — considered a grudge rubber by India after their 0-4 rout in the last away series — by playing three warm-up tour games — two in Mumbai and the third in Ahmedabad,venue of the opening match of the rubber.

England’s tour opener is scheduled from October 30 to November 1 at the Cricket Club of India’s Brabourne Stadium and the third game is to be held on a ground just outside the Sardar Patel Stadium at Motera from November 8-11.

MCA likely to convert CIC into technical committee

A committee of cricketers set up 10 years ago by the then Mumbai Cricket Association President Sharad Pawar to improve the game could be discontinued or converted into a technical committee. “I am going to put forward the proposal to convert CIC into the technical committee that would work on the lines of the Cricket Board and the ICC. They would formulate the rules and regulations of various tournaments conducted by us,” said MCA chief Ravi Savant at a media conference today.

“Mr Pawar had constituted CIC to give the reins on cricketing matters to cricketers,to improve cricket,but it was not happening,” Savant said. The CIC was in the news recently with three former cricketers putting in their papers all of a sudden alleging they were treated like “dustbin” by some committee members. Former cricketers Balwinder Sandhu,Karsan Ghavri and Nilesh Kulkarni had resigned from CIC. “One of the cricketers who resigned from CIC,Karsan Ghavri,did not even attend that meeting of the committee. He has played good cricket for India. His action was instigated. The point is he is also one of our managing committee members. He said later he was misguided,” noted Savant.

“There were heated arguments in one CIC committee meeting and one of the members (Deepak Patil) was also not correct (in the way he behaved),” he added. Savant also hit out at former selector Milind Rege without mentioning the former Mumbai Ranji Trophy player’s name for resigning from the selection panel.

“The fourth person (Rege),who quit from the selection committee,had said yes (for making Abey Kuruvilla as chief selector above him) and then resigned,” he said. Savant said Sachin Tendulkar and Zaheer Khan are available to play in Mumbai’s Ranji Trophy opener against Railways from November 2-5,before the home Test series against England. “Yes,both Sachin and Zaheer are available for the game. Our secretary (Nitin Dalal) is following it up,” he said.