BCCI keen on keeping NCA in Bangalore: Niranjan Shah

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Niranjan Shah
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MUMBAI, INDIA – MARCH 30: Niranjan Shah attends the IPL Nights after party following the 2010 DLF Indian Premier League T20 group stage match between the Mumbai Indians and Kings XI Punjab at the Oberoi Trident on March 30, 2010, in Mumbai, India. (Photo by Ritam Banerjee-IPL 2010/IPL via Getty Images)

For over a month now, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has been eyeing a grant for more land in order to expand the National Cricket Academy (NCA). Inaugurate a little over a decade ago, the NCA has been one of the most important elite centers for cricketing excellence in the country. However, with the Karnataka government rebuffing advances from the board for more land, reports have suggested that the academy could be moved elsewhere.

The latest development of the NCA has come from the director of the academy himself, Mr. Niranjan Shah. The former president of the BCCI also added that the board wanted to retain the academy in Bangalore itself, provided the state government allots 49 acres of land in the outskirts of the city by June 30, 2016.

“BCCI always has been keen on having academy set up in Bangalore as the weather in (the city) is favourable all through the year and that suits all sports and training. NCA can remain in the city if the government provides land by June 30, 2016,” Shah said in a press release issued by the Saurashtra Cricket Association (SCA) in Rajkot.

A meeting held by the board officials concluded that the academy would be shifted out of the city. Bangalore has been home to NCA since it came into existence in May 2000.

“It has been decided that the secretary [Ajay Shirke] will write to all state associations and if any of them can get us 30 to 40 acres land with necessary permission from the state government, there is a good chance of NCA being shifted there,” Shah had said after the board meeting on Sunday.

In what seemed to be a retaining U-turn, the Karnataka Industrial Areas Development Board [KIADB], and the deputy commissioners of Bangalore to identify the plot for NCA.  This comes as a certain bid to retain the Centre of Excellence in the city. “It’s a positive sign that the state government is coming forward to allot land for the academy after making them wait for more than six years,” Shah concluded.

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