MUMBAI: The Saurashtra Cricket Association is set to name its new cricket stadium at Khanderi in Rajkot after veteran cricket administrator Niranjan Shah on February 14, a day ahead of the third Test between India and England at the venue, TOI has learnt.
The inauguration of the new name of the stadium, as per a source, will most likely be done by BCCI secretary Jay Shah. Both the teams will be invited to attend the function, for which all the BCCI Apex Council members and state association office-bearers will be invited too.
Confirming this development, SCA president Jaydev Shah, Niranjan's son, told this paper from Rajkot: "This is a very big occasion. This is our way of honouring a person who has given 50 years of his life to cricket and achieved so much. He has also been the BCCI secretary in the past, and has worked so much for cricket in Saurashtra. I think it's a very good gesture by the SCA and its members."
A proposal regarding naming the SCA Stadium after Shah was "proposed and accepted," by the office-bearers of the SCA at the cricket body's Annual General Meeting on October 7 last year.
The 79-year-old Shah was the SCA secretary for close to four decades, and served as a BCCI secretary too. A left-hander in his time, he also played 12 first-class games for Saurashtra (281 runs@11.70) from the 1965-66 to the 1975-76 season.
