BCCI Secretary Jay Shah has been elected unopposed as the President of the International Cricket Council i.e. ICC. After which Jay Shah is the youngest ICC chairman. At the same time, no one is surprised to see this achievement of Jay Shah because everyone has seen his working style while being the secretary of BCCI.
Let us tell you that Jai Shah’s formal entry into cricket administration happened in 2009. During that time he started working at the district level with the Central Cricket Board Ahmedabad. After this, he moved to state level administration as an executive of Gujarat Cricket Association (GCA), and eventually became its joint secretary in 2013. However, it is being said that Jai Shah being elected as ICC chairman is a good decision.
The first reason for this is that Jay Shah has a good relationship with the players on a personal level. But this does not mean that the former heads of India’s ICC did not have a good equation with the players. Jagmohan Dalmiya and N Srinivasan were two successful businessmen who became natural administrators. At the same time, experienced politician Sharad Pawar knew the point of view of trusting senior players during his tenure as BCCI President. Later he also became the head of ICC. But in the case of Shah, whether it is captain Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli, Jasprit Bumrah or Hardik Pandya, he is comfortable with players.
If we look at Jay Shah’s five-year tenure, he had to go through a very challenging phase for two years (2020 and 2021) when COVID-19 shook the world and everything came to a standstill. Overseeing the creation of bio bubbles during the IPL, handling positive cases by forming medical teams within those bubbles and ensuring the full conduct of tournaments were among the hurdles he overcame.
Also, Jay Shah’s biggest achievement will be the launch of the Women’s Premier League. Under his leadership, two consecutive successful seasons of WPL were organized and during this time this league is giving the highest amount of contracts in women’s T20 cricket. His predecessors ignored this aspect of women’s cricket. The decision to ensure equality by paying equal match fees to the Indian women’s cricket team was a step in the right direction.
Another policy decision was to promote Test cricket. India will play a 10-Test season this year and if Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli play all the matches, they will get a match fee of Rs 6 crore. This is just Rs 1 crore less than their A-plus central retention contract. This does not mean that Shah did not punish when needed. He taught a lesson to young players who were believed to be ignoring domestic cricket and running after the riches of IPL.
