Pawar wants Tendulkar to come forward and help Mumbai cricket

Former International Cricket Council and Board of Control for Cricket in India president Sharad Pawar appealed to batting great Sachin Tendulkar to come forward and help Mumbai cricket in a bid to bring it back to its glory years.

“We will be very happy if he (Tendulkar) spares time for Mumbai Cricket Association (MCA). In fact, some discussions have already taken place with him and it would be great if he takes some responsibility. We already have Cricket Improvement committee, cricket selection committee, and if Sachin spares some time then Mumbai Cricket Association will be extremely happy. We are going to extend an invitation to him, we are going to discuss with him. We want to use his talent and his guidance for budding cricketers,” Pawar said in Mumbai on Saturday at the meeting of Pawar-Mahaddalkar group.

Tendulkar was recently named as part of Board of Control for Cricket in India's advisory committee along with Sourav Ganguly and VVS Laxman and Pawar wants the batting legend to make some contribution in development of Mumbai cricket as well.

Pawar, who is contesting the Mumbai Cricket Association elections, will be up against Vijay Patil of ‘Cricket First’ group for the president’s post in the MCA elections scheduled on June 17.
In fact, Patil had appealed to the veteran administrator to step aside and allow a new set of people take over at the MCA.

Pawar claims his opponent Patil has a hidden motive, which is to take some matches away from MCA’s Wankhede stadium to the DY Patil stadium which is owned by him.

“One of the candidates who is contesting along with Mr Patil, I saw his interview which appeared in one of the newspaper. One of the grievances is that Mumbai Cricket Association has not given matches to a private stadium and we want to take some of the matches there so we have decided to contest. (Ravi) Savant, myself and Ashish Shelar and all our colleagues are contesting the elections and our prime responsibility is to protect the interests of Mumbai Cricket Association. If we have to organise any match it has to be MCA’s Wankhede stadium because it is the association’s stadium and that is why we have constructed the stadium,” he added.

Pawar says his main aim behind contesting the MCA polls was to keep away people who had a personal agenda.

“We all have no objection to give practice matches, Ranji Trophy matches and other games (to the DY Patil stadium). But taking about giving IPL matches from which the MCA gets a few lakh rupees per match. If the match is given elsewhere then MCA will suffer financial loss. So, those who want to contest elections and manage the affairs of the association their main responsibility is to protect each and every part of the organisation.
They should make their position clear that we will never ask [to move] any game which are beneficial to the MCA to some other stadium. If this condition would have been accepted probably I would have not contested also,” he added.