As the sporting world starts to show signs of recovering from the impact of the coronavirus, Board of Control for Cricket in India president Sourav Ganguly said the game’s governing bodies will do everything in their power to restore normalcy, reported PTI.
Ganguly added that life will be back to normal once the vaccine for the virus is developed.
Sporting events around the world have taken a beating since March due to Covid-19 pandemic which has disrupted the scheduling, along with huge financial setbacks for cricket associations.
“This is something that has got the world in sheer shock. I think things will be back on track. We did not have the medicines to take care of it. But over a six or seven months’ period once the vaccine comes up everything will be normal,” Ganguly is quoted as saying during a live interaction for Unacademy.
“We have this tremendous resistance in ourselves. I think cricket will be back to normal. Yes, there will be some changes in schedule but think the BCCI and the ICC will be hell-bent to get cricket back to normal.”
Ganguly, by virtue of attending an ICC meeting on March 28, is said to have been included in the ICC Board as BCCI representative. That is a requirement for an individual to be considered for the role of ICC’s independent chairman, a post which is soon to be vacated by Shashank Manohar and one for which Ganguly seems to have emerged as a contender.
“Cricket will be very strong. There will be different tests, medical examinations for players, but I don’t see it coming in the way of sport and it will go forward. As the vaccine comes out, it’s going to be normal life I think. If you fall sick, whether you have fever, jaundice you pick those medicines and get better,” he added.
When Ganguly and Dravid went on rampage at Taunton during the 1999 World Cup
Ganguly, who went on to become one of the most successful captains of India having made his Test debut with a century at Lord’s, said he’d become a cricketer by “accident”. Having taken up football seriously, he was asked by his father to join cricket coaching.
“Football was my life. I was very good at it till class nine. During one summer vacation, my father told me you’re doing nothing at home go and practice. He put me into a cricket academy. I loved going there because it kept me away from home my parents, my brothers, my family, who were very disciplined. For me, this was a time away from them. I don’t know what my coach saw in me he told my father you should take him out of football. So I got into cricket,” he said.
Recollecting getting a hundred against Odisha at Eden in an age-group match, Ganguly said: “Five-six players got sick because of typhoid and an SOS came to our academy. I was fortunate to be one of them. I was nowhere but I got a hundred and then everything went off well. I became an accidental cricketer.”
One of the things that immediately endeared Ganguly to the leggions of cricket fans in India was how elegant the left-hander was through the off side.He became one because he had to use elder brother Snehashish’s kits.
“I had stopped playing for two-three months since then and then the CAB called for the trials. I had no kit. My brother played cricket and he was a left-hander. I had to adjust to a left-hander’s kit, the gloves and all.”
“I’m lucky that I played this game. I have seen this game evolve from the time I started,” Ganguly said adding that his real inspiration came when the Kapil Dev-led India lifted the World Cup for the first time in 1983.
His Lord’s debut hundred was like a fairy tale, he said.
“It will remain with me forever. My mindset that day I feel was the best that I had ever. Maybe the destiny was with me to become a Test cricketer. I proved myself that I belong here,” he added.
(With PTI inputs)
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