Irfan Pathan, Parvez Rasool meet Sourav Ganguly

MUMBAI: Sourav Ganguly's elevation as the new BCCI president seems to have filled the entire Indian cricket community with hope. On Monday, former India all-rounder turned commentator Irfan Pathan and off-spinner Parvez Rasool, the first cricketer from Jammu & Kashmir to play for India, met Ganguly at the BCCI headquarters here. Pathan is currently the mentor of the J&K cricket team.
"It was a courtesy call. They met Ganguly to request him to look after J&K cricket, which has been ignored for the past 50 years. There's been no infrastructural development there. There's only one cricket stadium - the Sher-E-Kashmir Stadium in the region. There are hardly any turf wickets. The situation worsened as J&K stopped receiving funds from the BCCI after a few corrupt officials siphoned off funds a few years ago," explained a source.
"However, with Ganguly becoming the BCCI president, J&K can hope that the Board will pay attention to the region, and provide it with stadiums, academies, turf wickets, grounds and good coaches," he added. "Ganguly was extremely cordial in the meeting, and has promised to help develop infrastructure. He did a magnificent job as the president of the Cricket Association of Bengal (CAB), and if he can do even 20% of that work in J&K, we will unearth genuinely talented players from the state," he said.