Raju Kulkarni, the former India pacer, has resigned as the chairman of the Mumbai Cricket Association’s (MCA’s) Cricket Improvement Committee (CIC).
“I wish to resign from the cricket Improvement Committee with immediate effect,” Kulkarni wrote in an email to MCA’s ad-hoc committee. “Since my appointment was made by Honourable judges as COA, I did not want to let them down and leave it in the middle of the season in spite of several disturbing issues in Mumbai cricket.”
“I thank Mumbai cricket association for giving a chance to serve my passion for (the) last 9 months and over 300 hours of discussions. Wishing lots of success to the future CIC committee,” he added.
Kulkarni’s resignation leaves Kiran Mokashi, the veteran off-spinner-turned-coach, as the lone member in the CIC on the back of four high-profile resignations from the committee that is primarily responsible for appointment of coaches and selectors of Mumbai’s various teams.
While Karsan Ghavri quit the CIC in January, former captain Amul Muzumdar and opener Sahil Kukreja resigned in solidarity with the senior selection panel led by Ajit Agarkar last month. With a majority of junior selectors having also resigned, and a headless CIC, the off-season cricket activities of the MCA have virtually come to a standstill.
With the MCA ad-hoc committee having already started planning for the second edition of the Mumbai T20 League – to be sandwiched between the IPL final on May 12 and World Cup starting May 30 – it would be interesting to see the steps taken by the administrators to start planning for the next domestic season after a lacklustre outing across age-groups and seniors last time around.