Dilip Vengsarkar defends conflict of interest charges by Nadim Memon

Dilip Vengsarkar

Former India skipper Dilip Vengsarkar has defended the conflict of interest allegations leveled by Nadim Memon, a former Managing Committee member of the Mumbai Cricket Association (MCA).

Dilip Vengsarkar

Although Vengsarkar's appointment as Director of the National Cricket Academy is honorary as he is also the vice-president of the MCA, Memon has alleged that the former chairman of selectors claims money of his hotel stay and other allowances from the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) when at the NCA in Bangalore.

'Complainant is tainted'
In his reply to the ombudsman, retired Justice AP Shah, appointed by the BCCI, Vengsarkar stressed that he does not make any profits through, "the normal reasonable operational expenses for travel, stay and food which are borne by the BCCI."

He added in his reply accessed by mid-day: "Nothing has been pointed out by the Complainant in order to rebut the said presumption. The unsubstantiated apprehension of the Complainant is tainted with malafides as he got defeated in the Mumbai Cricket Association elections from the opposite group".

It's all about giving back to cricket
Memon had also raised apprehensions that the former India skipper is in a position to favour boys from his academy in Mumbai and Pune. To this, Vengsarkar replied: "After my retirement I wanted to give back to the game by creating top-class infrastructure for upcoming cricketers aged between eight and 15 years and impart quality coaching to the selected few. I formed a public charitable trust for the purpose called the Dilip Vengsarkar Foundation in 1989 while still playing international cricket.

"I have been running cricket academies for junior cricketers since the last 21 years with great success. "Many trainees from the academy have gone on to play for Mumbai in the said age group tournaments of the Board of Control for Cricket in India and first-class cricket."