Gupta elected PCA prez

Gaurav Kanthwal

Tribune News Service

Mohali, September 24

Industrialist Rajinder Gupta was unanimously elected as the president of the Punjab Cricket Association (PCA) here today.

RP Singla was elected as the secretary and Ajay Tyagi the treasurer at PCA's Annual General Meeting today.

Rakesh Rathour  (brother of former India batsman Vikram Rathour), Prof SM Verma and Amarinder Bindra (son of former PCA chairman IS Bindra) were unanimously elected as vice-presidents, while Arun Sharma and Dr AGS Bawa were elected joint secretaries of the cricket body. Rajiv Mittal, RS Sachdeva, BK Bassi and PMS Banga were among the four individual members elected to the executive committee.

All the office-bearers were unanimously elected without any opposition, Singla said. “The elections for the posts of office-bearers were conducted by an electoral officer. The house unanimously elected the office-bearers and members to the executive committee,” PCA said in a press statement. Gupta, who is the chairman of the Trident Group, is a life member of PCA since 1994 and was one of the two vice-presidents last year.

Among the eight newly-elected office bearers, three — Rakesh Rathour, RP Singla and Arun Sharma — have played first-class cricket.

Pun Cricket Players Association (PCPA) official Bhupinder Singh (Sr) said, “Where are the cricketers? Earlier it was a former bureaucrat, now it is a businessman heading the cricket body. What difference does it make? Why cricketers are not acceptable to the body? If the Supreme Court and Committee of Administrators accept them as office-bearers, then all the best to them. But I can assure you that we will not let them enjoy the power if they do not work for the betterment of cricket in Punjab.”

Ratra named Punjab Ranji team coach

Former Test wicketkeeper-batsman Ajay Ratra has been appointed as the coach of the Punjab team for the current domestic season. The 35-year-old Faridabad cricketer has played six Tests and 12 ODIs for India, besides representing Haryana, Goa and Tripura in various domestic tournaments. Ratra last played a first-class game in 2013 for Tripura. He was part of the Indian U-19 team that won the Youth World Cup in 2000. Ratra will be assisted by Harvinder Singh, Harminder Kaku and Sandeep Sanwal.

Bedi, Sidhu left out 

Interestingly, former India cricketers hailing from Punjab like Bishan Singh Bedi, Navjot Singh Sidhu, Mohinder Amarnath, Reetinder Sodhi, Harvinder Singh, Bhupinder Singh and Pankaj Dharmani are not among the voters in the association.

The voter list also did not have the names of the cricketers who won the Ranji Trophy for Punjab in 1992-93. The Supreme court-appointed Lodha Committee in its reforms had stated that national and international cricketers should be involved in the governance of the sport in their respective states.