BCCI is run by BJP government, claims former Pakistan Cricket Board chairman Ehsan Mani

By Online Desk

Former Pakistan Cricket Board chairman Ehsan Mani blamed BJP for its influence within the BCCI and said that it is not easy to sustain communication with the neighbours because of it.

Ehsan Mani, during an interview with Cricket Pakistan, said “Although BCCI have Sourav Ganguly but has anyone ever wondered who their secretary of the board is? Jay Shah, son of Amit Shah. The BCCI treasurer is brother of a BJP Minister. The real control lies with them and BJP dictates BCCI which is why I did not pursue patching ties with them. I never turned them down but I did not want to sacrifice our integrity.”

Speaking about the former Pakistan PM Imran Khan’s departure, Ehsan said, “When I was the PCB chairman, we amended the law such that the Patron-in-Chief cannot directly interfere if the chairman’s performance is questionable. Only the board has the authority to do something about it. The Patron-in-Chief only has the authority to recommend two out of eight board members and it is then up to the board to determine who they would want to appoint as the next chairman. I tried but failed in trying to ensure that Patron should not have any nominee.”

Ehsan Mani also made some remarkable claims on departmental cricket.

He said, “If departmental cricket method was a functional then other countries would have also adopted it. People should think about the reasons why they haven’t and didn’t. The banks were pulling out before my arrival and before the new system was introduced. Only one local pulled out after I took over. Rest of the departments only used to prefer cricketers that were trained by PCB. Majority of the players were only paid for the season and were not employed throughout the year – with some exceptions of star players.”

He labelled the entire departmental cricket system as fraud.

“The system (departmental cricket] was so fraud; we had two divisions and players from first division were representing departments in the second division. I remember Faisalabad qualified for first division and it was later revealed that 9 out of 12 players in that team were already representing departments in the first division. There couldn’t have been a more flawed system in place,” Ehsan claimed.

He also said that people were wrong in claiming that getting rid of departmental cricket put the cricketers at a disadvantage.

“A first-class cricketer earns around PKR 3.2 million per year; this does not include the tournament prize money or personal endorsements,” he said.