Amitabh Choudhary questions the CoA, after Kevin Pietersen was picked to deliver Pataudi lecture

The acting secretary of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) Amitabh Choudhary has raised some serious questions against the working processes of the Supreme Court appointed Committee of Administrators (CoA), after the committee chose former England cricketer Kevin Pietersen to deliver the MAK Pataudi lecture 2018. They decided upon Pietersen as the previous choice Kumar Sangakkara was not available for the lecture. However, Choudhary was not at all happy with CoA’s decision to nominate a foreign cricketer to deliver the Pataudi lecture.

Cricketers who have played alongside Pataudi should be considered: Choudhary

He confronted the CoA and the BCCI officials through a letter in which he noted all the details of the discussions held before selecting the cricketer to deliver the lecture. Choudhary had suggested the office-bearers to consider the past cricketers who played alongside former Indian cricketer Late Tiger Pataudi for delivering the important lecture.

“When the matter was discussed with me at Bangalore a couple of days ago (May 8), I had suggested we also look for probable speakers amongst distinguished cricketers of yesteryears such as Nari Contractor, Chandu Borde, Erapalli Prasanna and Abbas Ali Baig. These cricketers have even the distinction of having played alongside Tiger Pataudi and if any of them agrees it could provide the much-needed perspective on how cricket has evolved from those years of challenge,” wrote Choudhary in his letter as quoted by TOI.

He further mentioned that none of those cricketers featured in the list when the final proposal was sent out. He expressed that the Tiger Memorial Lecture is not an elocution programme and the importance should be given to those cricketers who know the meaning of playing for the country in the times when it was a real struggle.

“Unfortunately, when the proposal came there was no mention of any of these past cricketers. As I understand Tiger Memorial Lecture is not an elocution contest and reasonable communication skills are all that we should look for. It is meant to bring to the fore the evolution of the game, what it meant to play for the country in the old days, the hardships of the time, challenges of the future and the like. If that be the case, certainly once every few years an iconic cricketer of yore should find a place as the keynote speaker in the Memorial Lecture,” said the BCCI secretary.

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