Veteran BCCI scorers request president Ganguly for "retirement benefits"

The initiative was taken by veteran Mumbai Cricket Association scorer Vivek Gupte, who on behalf of 17 scorers across the country, has appealed to Ganguly via e-mail for helping the financially distressed section of Indian cricket's eco-system.

Seventeen BCCI-accredited retired scorers have appealed to president Sourav Ganguly for "retirement benefits".

Seventeen BCCI-accredited retired scorers have appealed to president Sourav Ganguly for "retirement benefits" after bidding adieu to the sport at the age of 55.

The initiative was taken by veteran Mumbai Cricket Association scorer Vivek Gupte, who on behalf of 17 scorers across the country, has appealed to Ganguly via e-mail for helping the financially distressed section of Indian cricket's eco-system. "While we were requesting the BCCI to increase the retirement age of the scorers, which requires much lesser physical exhaustion, the BCCI has now upped the umpires' age limit from 55 to 60 years," said Gupte.

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"In our request mail, we had also mentioned that all these "Retired" scorers are senior scorers who are into the activity of scoring for about three decades." The BCCI accredited scorers now get Rs 10,000 per match day but in the post COVID-19 world, their income has significantly gone down with BCCI not being able to arrange any red-ball tournaments last season.

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However it's the former scorers, who have now been retired as per BCCI policy, who have fallen on hard times with most of them not having a plan B.

"When we started scoring the payments were meagre – as less as Rs 50/- per day. The senior scorers have given their lifetime and everything to this rather neglected activity, without much expectations - be it monetary or name or fame," Gupte said in his mail.

Gupte urged BCCI to at least take a note of the sacrifices made by the scorers' community for pursuing a field which was more of a passion than profession.

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It also stressed that a proper retirement policy should be given to the scorers. "Hence, the request was that a proper retirement policy be framed and put in place and that the retired scorers should be given, -- retirement benefits by way of a fixed monthly pension and/ or a one time lump sum amount and medical cover benefit," it said.

The retired scorers through the letter expressed confidence that the "BCCI will certainly be working out something fruitful for the benefit of senior retired scorers."

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Out of 17 scorers, M.S. Rahman (Jharkhand) died a few days ago and Sunil Landge from the Baroda Cricket Association was added to the list from December last year.

The 17 'retired' scores include three from the Mumbai Cricket Association.