Banerjee's Nobel prize much bigger: Ganguly

The Board of Control for Cricket in India president-elect Sourav Ganguly, on Tuesday, said the achievement of Nobel prize winner and fellow Bengali Abhijit Banerjee is much bigger than his.

"It's (Nobel prize) a much bigger and terrific achievement. I have not met him (Banerjee) ever. I was reading about him in the flight and what he did ... It's on economics related to poverty. He's a special person. Hopefully I will meet him someday," Ganguly said on his return to Kolkata, to a rousing reception. The 47-year-old is set to take charge as the BCCI president.

"From all of us, heartiest congratulations (to Banerjee)," he added.

Banerjee, who is a teacher at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, on Monday, became the eighth Indian to get the award and was jointly chosen the 2019 Nobel Economics Prize winner along with Esther Duflo, also MIT professor and Harvard University's Michael Kremer for their experimental approach to alleviating global poverty.

Duflo, who is Banerjee's wife, is the second woman to win the Nobel Prize for economics and its youngest recipient.

On the same day, Ganguly, the former Indian cricket captain emerged as the lone contender in the race to be the BCCI president. He was the only one to have filed the nomination for world cricket's most-coveted post.