Mumbai Cricket Association appoints improvement committee

Former India cricketer Chandrakant Pandit is slated to head the Mumbai Cricket Association’s (MCA) important arm, Cricket Improvement Committee, it was reliably learnt on Saturday.

The managing committee of the MCA took a call and appointed nine members including five international cricketers in the CIC on Saturday.

The Vilasrao Deshmukh-head MCA chose not to reveal the chief of the committee till Tuesday. However, it is learnt that former national wicketkeeper and the managing committee member, Pandit, would head the powerful committee.

“We have decided the members of the committee, but we will announce who is the chief on Tuesday,” joint secretary Nitin Dalal told DNA after the meeting.

The MCA president was keen on former India skipper Dilip Vengsarkar handling the affairs related to cricket, however, the latter had replied in the negative when he was sent the feelers.

“Mr Deshmukh wanted to have a veteran like Vengsarkar as the chief. He knows the grassroots of Mumbai cricket well and would have been handy. However, he has assigned one of the members of the managing committee to convince Vengsarkar before Tuesday. If he doesn’t, Pandit would be officially designated as the CIC chief,” said a source.

Apart from Pandit, former Test cricketer Lalchand Rajput, Milind Rege, Balwinder Singh Sandhu, Sanjay Manjrekar, Mayank Khandwala, Deepak Patil, Sanjay Patil and Amol Muzumdar are the members of the CIC.

Sandhu, Manjrekar and Rege have been the members of the CIC before.

“Muzumdar’s call will be taken only later once we are clear whether he is available or continues playing first class cricket,” said Dalal.

For the record, Muzumdar is playing for Assam.

Mumbai is yet to name its coach after Praveen Amre resigned from the post a few months ago and the CIC’s responsibility will be appoint his replacement and the new selection committees of the Mumbai senior, U-22, U-19, U-17 and U-14.

The other important sub-committees like Kanga League committee will be head by Vinod Deshpande, umpires committee Arvind Kadam, maidan committee Nadeem Memon and tournament committee Dawood Patel.