CIC mulls local-game restructure to ameliorate Mumbai cricket

In its endeavour to restructure Mumbai cricket, the Cricket Improvement Committee (CIC), headed by former India pacer Raju Kulkarni, has invited three former Mumbai captains to improve the team's cricket culture.

At a two-and-a-half hour meeting, the CIC heard the views of former Mumbai captain and chief selector Milind Rege, Mumbai stalwart and former India batsman Sanjay Manjrekar and Sameer Dighe, another former Mumbai skipper and selector who was also the head coach of the senior team for the 2017-18 season.

Improving infrastructure

With Amol Muzumdar, Mumbai’s backbone for one-and-a-half decades and a member of the CIC, in attendance along with coach Vinayak Samant and MCA officials, the discussion revolved around improving maidan culture and infrastructure for the association teams at various levels.

The CIC met for the second time in less than three weeks, after dissecting the Ranji Trophy debacle with senior players, selectors and support staff members. However, Kulkarni stressed that the exercise was not a knee-jerk reaction to the “poor” Ranji season.

READ| It's back to the drawing board for Mumbai

“Not because we have lost or won or whatever. We are trying to weigh everything with the help of former captains. We covered 50 years of Mumbai cricket with the help of the likes of Milind Rege, who was the Mumbai captain in the ’70s, Sanjay (Manjrekar) who played in the ’80s and ’90s, Amol, Sameer who was the coach,” Kulkarni said.

Brainstorming

“We are trying to see what is to be improved. Basically, we did a lot of brainstorming and it’s about how we can improve overall. The repair work is not to be done. It is about restructuring.”

Besides the three former captains and Ravi Savant, the former MCA president, CIC had also invited Dilip Vengsarkar for his views but the former India captain could not attend the meeting since he is overseas.

Kulkarni said the next step would be to interact with maidan coaches and cricketers.