UP’s Gyanendra Pandey gets a place in UCA’s Apex Council

LUCKNOW: Former India cricketer and Uttar Pradesh Ranji Trophy skipper Gyanendra Pandey has been appointed in the Apex Council in the Uttarakhand Cricket Association.

The appointment of Pandey also helped him to become the male representative of the UCA in the Indian Cricketers Association (ICA) too. “Yes, I have been given a new responsibility shoulder in the UCA and will try my best to live up to the expectations of everyone,” says Pandey, whose four-year stint as the junior India selector ended recently.

“I am very much satisfied with my tenure in the junior selection panel and I tried my best to justice to my responsibility. Our junior finished runners up at the recently held ICC Under-19 World Cup in South Africa after giving a fine performance, whereas our team won the World Cup in 2018.”

“I did enjoy my stint with greats like Rahul Dravid as the chief coach of the junior team then and even later as the chief of the National Cricket Academy. He (Dravid) has been a great supporter of talent and we had fine tuning in building good junior India sides in the past,” said Pandey, who has been one of the most successful captains for Uttar Pradesh in domestic cricket.

Pandey has played two ODIs for India in the ‘90s and led Uttar Pradesh in domestic cricket from 1988 to 2006.

“Since there’s no former cricketer from Uttarakhand currently (the hilly state started playing in the senior tournaments of domestic cricket only from 2018), we decided to nominate Pandey as their representative,” ICA president Ashok Malhotra, a former India batsman

and selector, was quoted as saying this week.

Meanwhile sources in the Uttar Pradesh Cricket Association said that Pandey should have been inducted in the UPCA instead of the UCA. “Gyanendra has been an asset for the UP cricket and always did great with whatever responsibility he was given. He was one of the finest players in the state team, he was quite amazing with his coaching qualities as chief coach of the UP Ranji team and what more you want from him to do? asked one of the senior officials of the UPCA on condition of anonymity.

“I would like to see him in the setup of UPCA soon as he (Gyanendra) has the ability to excel as an office-bearer in the cricketing body too. Let’s hope that he should be in the UPCA in some important positions when the tenure of some guards in the cricketing body ends this September,” he added.

Other than Gyanendra, many a former cricketers from Uttar Pradesh, including the former speedster Obaid Kamal too have been serving the Uttarakhand Cricket Association in different capacities.

PANDEY HAS PLAYED TWO ODIS FOR INDIA IN THE ‘90S AND LED UTTAR PRADESH IN DOMESTIC CRICKET FROM 1988 TO 2006