Anurag takes over HPCA fourth time

Lalit Mohan

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Tribune News Service

Dharamsala, May 31

Anurag Thakur, BJP MP from Hamirpur, was unanimously re-elected the president of the Himachal Pradesh Cricket Association (HPCA) for the fourth time consecutively since 2000. He was elected to the post at the annual general meeting (AGM) of the HPCA here today.

Anurag had expressed desire that somebody else should take over the reign of the HPCA since he was busy with other assignment as secretary to the BCCI and national president of the Bharatiya Janta Yuva Morcha (BJYM). However, the HPCA has now decided to retain him as the head.

The elections were conducted under the chairmanship of senior vice-president of the association RS Kapoor, who was the returning officer.

HPCA spokesperson Sanjay Sharma and two members Vishal Jagota and Yudhister Katoch proposed his name while AS Negi, RP Singh and Prem Thakur seconded it. The five-year term of Anurag as the HPCA president will continue till 2020. The new executive of the HPCA will be set up by Anurag who is also the secretary to the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI).

Addressing a press conference, he said when he took over as president, HPCA was in a shambles. It was lacking in infrastructure, negligible budget and state team performing poorly in the national-level tournament. He said in the last one decade, the HPCA had developed five cricket stadiums and academies across the state.

He said the HPCA would make efforts to start an annual tournament in September and October in Himachal in which the best teams of the country will participate.

“We will start a state-level tournament that will be named as HPL. A market study is being conducted to decide the format, number of games and other aspects of the tournament,” he said.

He said the Dharamsala stadium may soon get the test status and a BCCI team would come for an inspection. They are hosting a T20 International for the first time during the India-South Africa series slated in October-November at Dharamsala. They would try to get final match, said Thakur.

He further said the BCCI would constitute a cricket advisory committee on Monday which would decide on the appointment of coach.