The Indian cricket board has rejected actress Sharmila Tagore's request for naming the trophy for the home Test series against England after her late husband, MAK Pataudi.
Pataudi, one of India's most respected skippers and the man behind the rise of the famed spin quartet, captained
India in 40 Tests, winning nine of them, and led India to their first overseas series triumph. He passed away in September last year.
Tagore wrote to BCCI president, N Srinivasan, expressing displeasure over the board's reluctance to name the trophy after Pataudi. The Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) had commissioned the Pataudi Trophy in 2007. It was conceived to mark the 75th anniversary of the first India-England series.
In her mail sent on Nov 2, Tagore had also raised the delay in formalising a Pataudi Memorial Lecture.
“Prof (Ratnakar) Shetty (BCCI chief administrative officer) has written to me and I had written back to Mr Srinivasan asking him whether the family has any role to play, and whether we can suggest a speaker. He had replied that the family will not have any role to play but it will happen every year. It has been more than a year or so. That is where it stands now. No response, nobody has called me," she told Times Now.
The BCCI clarified that the home series will be played for the Anthony De Mello trophy, instituted in 1951 in honour of its first secretary. “In 2007, when MCC proposed the institution of Pataudi Trophy, the BCCI had clarified that the trophy is already named after Anthony De Mello,” said secretary Sanjay Jagdale.