Ganguly: Happy to be given responsibility during 'major crisis'

On his return to Kolkata after being unanimously chosen as the BCCI president, Sourav Ganguly said restoring the Board's prestige is among top priorities.

Sourav Ganguly cutting a cake with his colleagues at the Cricket Association of Bengal as part of the felicitation for being elected the BCCI president.

BCCI president-elect Sourav Ganguly on Tuesday said that he would strive to get the Board to where it belonged.

On his return to his home city after being unanimously chosen as the next BCCI president in Mumbai, Ganguly said getting back the Board’s prestige would be among the top priorities.

“With everybody’s help hopefully we can turn the Board around. It is important that India gets back to where it was in cricket because India is the biggest powerhouse in cricket and India should get due respect. Not only financially, but also as a cricket team they are probably the best in the world,” Ganguly, who cut a cake as part of the felicitation function organised by the Cricket Association of Bengal (CAB), told reporters at the Eden Gardens here.

The former India captain is happy to take over at a tough time. “The most satisfying thing is that when I became India captain, then Indian cricket was in difficult times and they gave me the responsibility. Now the administration has been through a major crisis. It is emergency. I am happy to get the responsibility to turn it around. When it is tough, you believe that you are good enough to do it.

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“I am here to do a job for everyone – to make Indian cricket cleaner and administration-wise get the backroom smooth and going along with all the members of the apex council.

“I have a very young team. It's new for them also. We will do our job to the best of our ability. There will not be lack of effort.”

Ganguly said he expected the Indian team to realise its potential. “The team’s performance overseas is satisfactory. Only thing is that they need to win big tournaments. It’s not possible to win every time but they have gone through seven big tournaments without winning one. They are a much better side than that. That’s one area Virat (Kohli) has to address and that does not happen in the board room.”