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A Saurashtra minus Niranjan Shah? Imagine that
- Updated: January 3, 2017
The New Year at the Saurashtra Cricket Association (SCA) Stadium in Khandheri, on the outskirts of Rajkot, has begun on a sleepy note. There is a Ranji Trophy semi-final in progress between two heavyweight sides – Mumbai and Tamil Nadu – but not many people have gone through the trouble of commuting nearly 15 kilometres from the city to watch the game. One of the early birds at the stadium this nippy morning is Niranjan Shah, nominally the secretary of the SCA but its de facto head – as he has been for over four decades. He is wearing a white woollen sweater and pacing about the lobby one level above the teams’ dressing rooms, one moment regaling journalists with a bunch of tales, old and new, the next chatting with Sarandeep Singh, the national selector.
Shah is not around the next day, Monday (he is back on Tuesday evening, though, and seen walking around the outfield). A writ issued more than a thousand miles away has ended his term, and probably also ended his career as an administrator. He is believed to have flown to Mumbai, for reasons unknown. Shah isn’t here – and yet he is everywhere.
The SCA Stadium complex has several spaces dedicated to Saurashtra’s stalwarts – from Ranjitsinhji to Vinoo Mankad to Ravindra Jadeja, they are all celebrated in sketches and wall art. There is Shah’s name, too, in bold white letters; he has turned out in 12 first-class matches. In one corner of the wall, there is a framed photograph of him posing with Tendulkar. The stadium itself is Shah’s most visible triumph; with its Lord’s-inspired media capsule and its canopies evoking Adelaide, it is among the best of India’s new arenas.
Shah is everywhere. And his omnipresence symbolises exactly what the Supreme Court has sought to eradicate: an individual or clique entrenched for years, often decades, in the seat of power at the state associations. If Shah ruled Rajkot and Saurashtra for years, he had counterparts across the country: the Rungtas in Rajasthan, IS Bindra and MP Pandove in Punjab, Jagmohan Dalmiya in Bengal, N …
