Pressure on Pandit to quit

The walls are fast closing in around Cricket Improvement Committee chief Chandrakant Pandit with the Mumbai Cricket Association insistent that he be removed from the top post.

The walls are fast closing in around Cricket Improvement Committee (CIC) chief Chandrakant Pandit with the Mumbai Cricket Association (MCA) insistent that he be removed from the top post. The MCA’s emphasis on his ouster comes in the wake of the former Indian wicket-keeper’s decision to accept a full-time job as director of the Rajasthan Cricket Academy a few months ago. Pandit’s future as CIC chief will now be decided when the MCA management committee meets at their office in Wankhede Stadium on Friday.

The general feeling among the members is that having accepted the Rajasthan job,Pandit has raised a conflict of interest situation. He can only either serve Mumbai or Rajasthan. He has to make a decision regarding it, a MCA official said. It has been reliably learnt,meanwhile,that MCA joint-secretary Nitin Dalal had verbally asked Pandit to resign but the CIC chief had responded by demanding that the association hand him a request in writing.

This is not the first time that Pandit and the MCA have been at loggerheads. As per the association’s rules,a managing committee member cannot be an employee of the MCA. And Pandit had been forced to resign as the indoor academy’s director after the MCA had rejected his request of retaining his post despite winning the elections to become a committee member.

Pandit did,however,find some support from a few the members who are against Pandit’s removal,stating that at least in comparison to his predecessor he was available at all times to hold meetings. Nobody complained when Sunil Gavaskar was chief despite being a NRI and failed to show up even when former great players like Madhav Apte used to come from Pune. At least Pandit is available and doing something good, a managing committee member said on the condition of anonymity. Meanwhile,the MCA will also review the Mumbai team’s performance this season across senior and junior tournaments. However,this matter is not in the MCA’s agenda for Saturday and will be discussed in due course.

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Mumbai Cricket Association