Gangaraju has come a long way

From a dormant administrator of the Krishna District Cricket Association (KDCA) to the vice-president of the Board of Control for Cricket of India (BCCI), the 69-year-old Gokaraju Gangaraju, the BJP MP from Narasapur, has come a long way.

“This is an opportunity to do something to my players and my districts,” he said The Hindu from Chennai soon after the annual general meeting,

Raju, as vice-president of the KDCA, in the nineties was giving his timely advice from a distance by not getting into the intricacies of the Andhra Cricket Association (ACA) politics. He was happy looking after his factories and industries. But fate had a different twist in store for him. He was pitchforked into the thick of things — courtesy — the power tussle between two warring groups paving the way for him to become a secretary of the KDCA and from there he grew in strength. This former university player went onto become the vice-president of the ACA under the stewardship of then secretary Nekkanti Venkata Rao, a close aide of Jagmohan Dalmiya.

His decision-making ability came to the fore when Vijayawada hosted the first-ever official one-day limited overs match against Carl Hopper-led West Indies team in 2002.

One evening, Venkata Rao and Raju were taking stock of things at the Indira Gandhi Municipal Stadium, the venue for the match, and Mr Rao asked: “Ganga, we need to build a media centre. Will you pitch in?”

Without batting his eyelids, Mr Raju gave his nod and in one week’s time he spruced up a glittering media centre as per the specifications of International Cricket Council (ICC), by spending around Rs. 10 lakhs from his pocket. Mr Raju, became the president of the ACA in 2008 and later he went on to become secretary in 2009. He showed his leadership qualities admirably by standing for values and when the association slipped into several ‘infamous’ situations under the regime of former secretary V. Chamundeswarnath.

In the first-ever elections held at Vijayawada Club in 2011, Raju and Co romped home defeating his opponent group led by N. Venkata Rao 27-11. The ACA, in the last four years, grew in stature and earned the goodwill and appreciation of all stakeholders of the game. The spurt in development activities in 13 affiliated districts made many jaws to drop and the BCCI acknowledged the ACA’s right way of spending the board funds. An exclusive women’s academy at Guntur, an exclusive cricket stadium at Amaravati along with an indoor stadium with eight wickets, three academies at Kadapa, Vizianagaram and Mangalagiri, playfields at Ongole and Perecherla were established under the supervision of former India international and director (cricketing operations) M.S.K. Prasad and his team.

The ACA-VDCA Stadium at Visakhapatnam got the Test status in his regime and the venue was also shortlisted to host the razzmatazz Indian Premier League matches.

Gangaraju was pitchforked into the thick of things — courtesy — the power tussle between two warring groups paving the way for him to become a secretary of the KDCA