I will be happy to take up a national role: Snehasish Ganguly

There was never a dull moment for Snehasish Ganguly, the elder brother of Dada of Indian cricket, as the man at the helm of Eden of cricket for last two years.  

The President of Cricket Association of Bengal (CAB), a state body with rich history, had been under the spotlight as the Eden Gardens underlined its status as one of the main venues of the 2023 ICC World Cup while they were the first state body to start T20 franchise leagues for men and women together in the country.

 A bit of an introvert unlike his more famous brother Sourav, the former star Bengal batter completed the first two years in his current avatar in October and says he is game to be a part of the system to run cricket in India. ‘’I don’t mind if there is an opportunity to run the sport for India. I have played the game long enough to know what it takes,’’ the 59-year-old said during a freewheeling interview.

There was a time when the hallowed turf would be almost assured of getting some of the marquee matches whenever India hosted a major tournament, but in the words of Snehasish, things have much become tougher now.

‘’For the past 15 years, you cannot really take things for granted as the BCCI has a lot of options in terms of venues. We had to fight against odds to convince Jay Shah for giving us five plum matches – which included a semi-final, England-Pakistan and India-South Africa,’’ the CAB supremo told The National Herald in an interview.

The last time India hosted a 50-overs World Cup in 2011, one of India’s high profile matches had to be shifted out of Eden with the venue not being ready on time.

‘’Despite the glorious history of Eden, a number of improvements were necessary for the viewing experience of the fans and we decided to focus on those areas. By the time the IPL 2023 came, we gave BCCI a tour of the renovated clubhouse, media centre, the under-gallery washrooms for spectators which had been an area of complaint,’’ Snehasish said.   

Taking stock of first two years of his tenure as a president, the erstwhile graceful southpaw said it gave his team a great deal of satisfaction to finally get the Bengal Pro T20 League off the ground.

‘’CAB had realised the need to start their own franchise league a number of years back and were not really influenced by others. The difference between us and others is while the other state bodies are bankrolling the teams, we successfully organised bids for all teams and decided to go ahead with the women’s edition as well,’’ he said.

Was it almost a gamble to go ahead with the women’s league – as the depth of talent pool was still somewhat under scrutiny. However, Snehasish said he never had such worries as the women’s club cricket – introduced by the CAB earlier this year – already showed enough promise by throwing up around 150 girls representing 10 clubs. ‘’The standard of women’s cricket in Bengal, believe it or not, has improved by leaps and bounds. We have a talented senior team as well as an extremely competitive U-19 team,’’ he said.

Looking ahead at what could be his final year of a three-year term, the CAB head honcho confirmed that reigning champions Kolkata Knight Riders would be playing their ‘home’ matches at the Eden in IPL 2025.

There were some suggestions in the media that the Eden could be off limits for the IPL as preparation for the next World T20 in 2026 would start across the venues in India. ‘’There is no basis for such reports as on the contrary, we are excited that the IPL opening ceremony and the final will be held at the Eden after 12 years. We have also clarified to the KKR management that Eden is very much available,’’ Snehasish said.

The Gangulys have been no strangers to positions of power at the state association over the years. While dad Chandi Ganguly was the secretary for years and formed a partnership with Jagmohan Dalmiya as the president, former India captain Sourav served as the president before moving on to become the BCCI head in 2019. While each brought in distinctive styles of administration, a contentious issue had always been whether the state could produce an assembly line of talent under their stewardship for the big league.

An unpalatable question for Snehasish is the lack of representation of homegrown talents from Bengal in the Indian squads across formats – as well as the KKR team in IPL. Snehasish, however, refused to buy it as he felt that the likes of a Mohammed Shami and Abhimanyu Eshawaran are no less Bengal boys than anyone else. ‘’My point is someone like Abhimanyu may have been born outside Bengal, but his family migrated here when he was a 11-year-old. He had come up through the system of our grassroots cricket and I see nothing wrong with it.

Longer club season

‘’However, if I see any established name from another state coming here from another state for one or two seasons, then I am not going to allow that,’’ he explained.

The player-turned-administrator feels that while playing hosts of major international fixtures helps the CAB score brownie points, it gives him greater satisfaction to see exciting talents emerging from their ecosystem. ‘’We have tried to spread out the games across districts and have a longer season now with cricket going on for nine months in a year and over 3000 matches in all. The results are showing as Bengal finished runners-up in the national Under-19 tournament,’’ Snehasish signed off.