Sourav Ganguly’s tenure at the BCCI has been momentous. In an interview to The Telegraph in July, Sourav said: “These three years have been a golden period for the BCCI despite Covid for two years... in terms of cricket, finance, governance, everything... There have been no controversies...I feel fortunate that I have been part of this meteoric rise of Indian cricket from Day I.”

Here are the top-six moments from his reign (not in any particular order):

⚫ Convincing two Indian greats to take up two important positions — Rahul Dravid as Team India head coach and VVS Laxman at the helm of National Cricket Academy.

⚫ Setting in motion the process to have a Women’s IPL next year. This is bound to have a huge effect on the performance and India’s ranking in world cricket.

⚫ The setting up of the refurbished and state-ofthe-art National Cricket Academy in the outskirts of Bangalore. This will provide huge opportunities to the youngsters in taking Indian cricket to the next level.

⚫ Hosting IPL during the peak of the pandemic in 2020 and 2021. While in the first year it was hosted in the UAE during September-November, the second year it was tougher. The IPL had to be postponed at home in May and later held in the UAE before the T20 World Cup.

⚫ The IPL media rights fetched the BCCI Rs 48,390 crore for the five-year cycle starting 2023 — TV rights accounting for Rs 23,575 crore and digital fetching Rs 23,758 crore for 410 matches. The rest of the world rights amounted to Rs 1,057 crore.

⚫ The addition of two new IPL franchises brought another Rs 12,715 crore to the BCCI coffers. While RP-Sanjiv Goenka Group won the bid for the Lucknow franchise for Rs 7,090 crore, CVC Capitals emerged successful bidders of Ahmedabad franchise by shelling out Rs 5,625 crore.