INDIA. Mumbai: As a result of a strong political front, former international cricketer Sandeep Patil lost the election for the Presidentship of the Mumbai Cricket Association (MCA) and Amol Kale of the Shelar-Pawar group emerged victorious in the election (2022-2025) held at Wankhede Stadium in South Mumbai on Thursday.
Kale won by 25 votes, securing 183 votes as against the 158 votes bagged by Patil. Two votes were invalid. Former MCA Vice President Kale, an industrialist who hails from Nagpur, is a close colleague of Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis.
Patil is a former Indian cricketer, Indian national age group cricket manager and former Kenya national team coach, who guided the underdogs to the semi-finals of the 2003 World Cup. He was a hard-hitting middle order batsman and an occasional medium-pace bowler.
NCP President Sharad Pawar, who had earlier declared support for Patil, subsequently formed the Ashish Shelar (BJP)-Sharad Pawar group (SPG) with a string of politicians across the political spectrum, to contest the elections. They included members of the BJP, NCP, Shiv Sena (Uddhav Thackeray faction) and Shiv Sena (Shinde faction).
The SPG group won 10 out of 14 apex council seats, while the Patil-led MCG had to settle for three seats.
The election for the Vice President could not be held since there was no candidate. The election process will have to be held within 45 days, otherwise the post will remain vacant for the entire term.
The Mumbai Cricket Group (MCG) was set up with World Cup winner Sandeep Patil as the face, mentored by former Mumbai captain Milind Rege and veteran administrator Ratnakar Shetty. The Bal Mahaddalkar Group (BMG), anchored by former MCA chief Ravi Savant, fielded five candidates.
Other winners: Hon Secretary: Ajinkya Sudhir Naik (286)-Elected (Mayank Khandwala (35) and Neil R Savant(20). Invalid votes/Not voted-02. Deepak J. Patil was elected with no opposition.Arman Mallick (162)-Elected (Jagdish Achrekar (161), Sanjeev P Khanolkar (18). Invalid votes/votes not cast-02.Chairman of the Governing Council of T 20 Keague-Vihang Pratap Sarnaik-Elected unopposed, Member of the Governing Council: Ganesh Iyer (213)-Elected, Maulik J. Merchant (123), Invalid votes/Not Voted-07.
Milind Narvekar (221), Nilesh J Bhosle(219), Kaushik V Godbole (205), Abhay S Hadap (205), Suraj Samat (170), Jitendra S Awhad (163), Mangesh S Satam( 157), Sandeep N Vichare (154), and Pramod T Yadav (152)-Elected.
Others who were in the fray: Vighnesh A Kadam (149), Yazdegardi Khodadad (148), Deepan S Mistry (143), Patel Shafique Farooque (132), Amit P Dani (127), Dawood Patel (126), Prashant B Sawant (123), Surendra P Harmalkar (121), Surendra C Shewale (88), Rajesh J Mahant(60), Sameer S Pethe (41), Rajendra S Talpade (29), Vikram Vaidya(21) and Mayank K Parikh(16). Invalid votes/votes not cast-117
In all, 343 out of 356 eligible voters cast their votes. The voters included Maidan clubs (211), office clubs (68), schools and college clubs (34) and former international cricketers (43).
Sachin Tendulkar, Sunil Gavaskar, Ajit Agarkar, Sanjay Manjrekar, Paras Mhambrey, Wasim Jaffer, Vinod Kambli, and Avishkar Salvi could not vote since they were declared ineligible by the Election Commissioner J S Saharia, since they did not submit the voter’s identity cards.
The MCA (formerly Bombay Cricket Association), established in 1930, is the governing body for cricket in Mumbai and its surrounding regions such as Thane, Badlapur (Central suburbs), Dahanu (Western suburbs), and Navi Mumbai up to Kharghar. It is in the West Zone. Its headquarters are situated at the Cricket Centre in Churchgate in South Mumbai. Various clubs are associated with the MCA, which form its electoral college.
The MCA governs the Mumbai cricket team and sanctions cricket tournaments in the Mumbai district. The Mumbai team has won the Ranji Trophy a record 41 times. Cricketing legends such as Vijay Merchant, Sunil Gavaskar, and Sachin Tendulkar were players for MCA’s team.
In a bid to become the first Test cricketer in three decades to head the MCA, Patil threw his hat in the ring. but was not successful like his predecessors.
Four-time MCA President, veteran cricketer Madhav Mantri, lost to former Maharashtra CM Manohar Joshi (Shiv Sena), who became MCA President in 1992. Sharad Pawar became MCA President by defeating former captain Ajit Wadekar in 2001.
Similarly, former Maharashtra CM, Vilasrao Deshmukh, became the MCA President by defeating former India skipper Dilip Vengasarkar in 2011. The saga of politicians dominating the MCS continues.
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