Women in Cricket - TNCA set to have a lady President !!

The Madras Presidency Matches were annual first-class cricket matches played in Madras from the 1915–16 season to 1951–52 between the cricket teams of Indians and the Europeans (i.e., Europeans who were living in India). The matches were played in the Chepauk Grounds mainly during Pongal times. Of the 33 matches played, Indians won 15 and the Europeans 8 with 10 draws.  The name of RD Richmond appears in some of these. 

The list is short and reads :  RD Richmond, Dr P Subbarayan, CP Johnstone, CR Pattabhiraman, MA Chidambaram, Balu Alagannan, N Shankar, Dr AC Muthiah and the popular N Srinivasan ~ obvious that not all of them were Cricketers ~ and to the list gets added a lady !!  - in case you are wondering ! – it is the list of the Presidents of TNCA.  Tamil Nadu Cricket Association (TNCA) is the governing body of Cricket activities in the Tamil Nadu state of India and the Tamil Nadu cricket team. It is affiliated to the Board of Control for Cricket in India.

Woman in Cricket circles is not new ! ~ am not talking about Mayanti Langer.  Remember seeing Indian womens’ play at Chepauk – captained by Shanta Rangaswamy, the first woman to lead an Indian cricket team, the first woman to win a Test series and the first woman to receive a lifetime achievement award from the BCCI, Shanta Rangaswamy was nothing short of a pioneer. But if she had to be broken down in the simplest terms, she was a batting allrounder, who ran in with the new ball and later made others run after it. She captained 12 out of the 16 Tests she played in since making her debut in Oct 1976.  She scored India's first Test century and smashed the first six as well.

There are other women too.  Australia's Claire Polosak is  the first female umpire to officiate in a men's one-day international.   She stood in the final between ICC members  Namibia and Oman.  Former India women cricketer GS Lakshmi  became the first female to be appointed to the ICC International Panel of Match Referees.

Organized league cricket in the State began in Madras in 1932. The Indian Cricket Federation staged what is now acknowledged as the first cricket league in India when it conducted a competition for the clubs of Madras in 1932. The Madras Cricket Association was formally constituted on April 30, 1935. The Association was shortly thereafter affiliated to the Board of Control for Cricket in India.  The famous Chepauk stadium named as ‘M A Chidambaram Stadium’ had its beginnings even earlier in 1916.   In June 2009, reconstruction work of the stadium was taken up at the cost of ₹175 crore  and plans included constructing three new reinforced concrete stands designated I, J, and K accommodating 10,000 spectators and 24 hospitality boxes under translucent PTFE membrane roofs. It ran into trouble as there was no building permission and some IPL matches were conducted with these stands kept empty. 

Besides being the home ground for the yellow ‘Chennai Super Kings’ – TNCA, inaugurated Tamil Nadu Premier League in 2016. This has taken cricket in TN to much interior parts fo the State too.  The news is about TNCA getting a new women President. 

Media reports are abuzz that former Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) President N. Srinivasan''s daughter Ms Rupa Gurunath is all set to become the first woman President of a BCCI state body at the Tamil Nadu Cricket Association''s (TNCA) annual general meeting on September 26. As per sources in the know of things, the decision was taken at TNCA''s executive committee meeting on Sunday, and Ms Rupa  is unlikely to face any opposition with the last date for filing nomination being September 24. The other candidates who are front runners to form the panel are R.S. Ramaswamy for Vice President, K.A. Shankar for Joint Secretary and J. Parthasarathy for Treasurer.

Ms Rupe seen talking with MS Dhoni

The Supreme Court on Friday allowed the TNCA to hold polls to elect its office bearers. A bench comprising Justices S.A. Bobde and L. Nageswara Rao said that the election results will be subject to the final order. Senior advocate P.S. Narasimha, who is assisting the apex court as amicus curiae, contended that only four out of the 38 cricket associations in the country had failed to adopt the new BCCI constitution. But the SC allowed the state body to go ahead with the elections. On Saturday, Jaydev Shah was named the President of the Saurashtra Cricket Association (SCA) as electoral officer Varesh Sinha declared the name of the five office bearers of the SCA along with 11 apex council members duly elected to their respective posts. While Shah was elected President, Dipak Lakhani was named the Vice President, Himanshu Shah the Secretary, Karan Shah the Joint Secretary and Shyam Raichura the Treasurer.

Son of former BCCI official Niranjan Shah, Jaydev Shah has played 120 first-class matches and captained Saurashtra for a record 110 times. Saurashtra were runners-up in the Ranji Trophy in 2012-13 and 2015-16 and also won the Vijay Hazare Trophy in 2007-08 under his captaincy. He announced retirement from all formats of the game in 2018. Meanwhile, former India captain Sourav Ganguly is also set to be re-elected unopposed as the President of Cricket Association of Bengal (CAB). Ganguly''s five-member panel did not meet any opposition till the deadline for filing nomination, which was Saturday.

There are some reports on twitter that TNCA EC meeting has ended and formally Ms Rupa Gurunath is to become the first women president of a BCCI State Unit.  Tamil Nadu leads the way in having a new President, a woman at that.

With regards – S. Sampathkumar

23^rd Sept. 2019 @ 0800am.