Anonymous letter ruffles feathers at CAB, irks Ganguly
Kolkata, Aug 9 : An anonymous letter has triggered a war words between Cricket Association of Bengal (CAB) ombudsman Ushanath Banerjee and state board President Sourav Ganguly over alleged conflict of interest of selectors Palash Nandy and Madan Ghosh.
Banerjee had received an anonymous letter a few days back which pointed out that senior selection panel chief Nandy was associated with a cricket coaching camp.
Further, it alleged that Ghosh, who moved from the senior to junior selection recently was both associated with a coaching camp and had also represented White Border Club in CAB meetings previously.
"The CAB had done nothing about it for a long time. For the pair, it was business as usual till the letter came and stirred a hornet's nest," a source close to the development said.
Ganguly shot off a letter, a copy of which was circulated to the media, asking Banerjee not to pay heed to such cases since the complainant did not reveal his or her identity.
"The Cricket Association of Bengal will not entertain any such anonymous communication and as such you being an important part of the organisation should follow the same. I feel you are not entitled to give any reply," Ganguly wrote.
Banerjee hit back within hours using strong language. The four-page rejoinder was also circulated to the media.
Banerjee rejected the former India captain's diktat, saying: "it is widely acknowledged that in the interest of maintaining transparency, organisations world over take cognizance of anonymous information."
To butress his point, he cited in the letter examples of cases where the judiciary has acted on the basis of anonymous information.
"You have been incorrectly advised by persons without any homework being done and based on mere knowledge in the subject matter in issue," Banerjee wrote to Ganguly.
"I humbly request you to kindly point out the said policy of CAB, as referred in your letter, and the date when so adopted," the reply read.
When contacted, the senior advocate gave an impression that the issue had been resolved but did not want to be quoted on any further action.
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Two injuries, one DNF, a DQ as India end messy World Relays campaign
Gaborone (Botswana) (PTI): Amoj Jacob and Ragul Kumar got injured during the men's 4x400m and 4x100 races respectively as India ended their World Athletics Relays campaign in disappointment on the second day of competitions here on Sunday.
The Indian camp had high hopes of making the 2027 World Championships in the men's 4x400m relay but the team did not finish (DNF) the race as Jacob suffered cramps and pulled out of the race after taking the baton from the first leg runner Dharamveer Choudhary. Rajesh Ramesh and Vishal TK were to run in the third and fourth legs.
Those teams which could not qualify for the 2027 Beijing World Championships by reaching the final round of each of the six relay events on Saturday were given another chance in the second qualification round on Sunday.
The top two teams in each of the two heats (in all six relay events) booked the Beijing ticket on Sunday.
India will now have to try and qualify for the World Championships through the Top Lists of the World Athletics, which is a long and tedious process.
In the men's 4x100m race, third leg runner Ragul Kumar fell down the track after failing to hand over the baton inside the exchange zone to fourth leg runner Gurindervir Singh, which clearly showed the lack of coordination among the runners.
Harsh Santosh Raut and Animesh Kujur ran the first two legs.
The Indian quartet was disqualified and Kumar was seen being taken away from the Field of Play with the help of the volunteers.
It was a comedy of errors in the case of the women's 4x100m race, which saw the baton being dropped during an exchange between first leg runner Tamanna and second runner Nithya Gandhe, though the Indians finished the race in 53.09 seconds.
Gandhe started running quite a distance, but after realising that the baton was not in her hand, she turned and ran back to pick it up.
The only silver-lining for the Indian contingent was the national record time in the mixed 4x100m relay race, though the quartet of Ragul Kumar, Nithya Gandhe, Animesh Kujur and Sneha SS finished sixth in heat number two with a time of 41.35 seconds, bettering the previous national mark of 42.30 seconds set in March in Chandigarh.
The mixed 4x400m relay quartet of Theerthesh P Shetty, Kumari Saloni, Nihal William and Rashdeep Kaur ended at fifth in heat number one with a time of 3 minutes and 19.40 seconds.
On Saturday, all the five Indian relay teams had failed to make it to the respective final rounds and thus missed out on the 2027 World Championships berths.
