Robust system helped cricket survive controversies: Former BCCI secretary Sanjay Jagdale

INDORE: Former BCCI secretary Sanjay Jagdale today said Indian cricket has managed to survive the innumerable brush with controversies in recent years because of the robust system put in place by the Board's past masters such as MA Chidambaram and Jagmohan Dalmiya.

The 67-year-old longtime administrator, who also served in the national selection committee multiple times, quit as BCCI secretary at the height of the IPL spot-fixing scandal in 2013, never to return.

Jagdale, also a former MPCA president, is currently looking after the cricket affairs at the Madhya Pradesh Cricket Association.

"There has been a lot of uncertainty in the BCCI, but in spite of all the controversies, the best thing is that cricket has not suffered, the system has not suffered, teams are still performing. The Indian team is performing, that shows the strength of the system," Jagdale told PTI.

"It is because of the system, right from junior to senior level. I am not talking about international cricket only, we have the system, the infrastructure. BCCI was not built in 2-3 days. Right from the beginning -- from Chidambaram to Dalmiya to (I S) Bindra, credit goes to them. They are the people who brought BCCI to this level," he said.

Asked if he would support cricketers take control of administration, Jagdale said, "It depends upon the individual, depends on if he has the motivation and interest in administration. Sourav (Ganguly) is already into it and we have seen a lot of changes in CAB." The former cricketer hailed the contribution of the neutral curators for preparing good wickets in the ongoing Ranji Trophy season, which will conclude with the five-day final between Delhi and Vidarbha starting tomorrow at the Holkar Stadium here.

"It has seen some good matches being played on good pitches. I am happy that the BCCI took the initiative of sending a neutral curator at various Ranji Trophy venues, which has produced good cricket also," he said.

"There will not be matches finishing in two days or 700- 800 runs being scored by teams. We had a lot of results. We had some very good close matches, the semifinal between Karnataka and Vidarbha being one of them." The practice of having neutral curators started in 2012 when Jagdale was the BCCI secretary.

He said the Board was right in reverting to the home and away game in the league stage.

"Playing on neutral venues was discouraging, you hardly get anybody to see Ranji Trophy matches these days. If there is no local interest then nobody would play. The purpose of having it at neutral venue was to not allow the host team to prepare wickets to its liking and finish a match on the second day. To stop all that it was done, but now they are sending neutral curators which we started in 2012," said Jagdale.

"Curators are monitoring that there are no cases of prepared wickets. That way it is good to have knockout matches on neutral venue, you will see a good wicket in the final, there were decent wickets in the semifinals also."