The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) Secretary Jay Shah announced a financial assistance of INR 1 crore for former India cricketer Anshuman Gaekwad. The 71-year-old has been suffering from blood cancer. Shah spoke to Gaekwad's family to extend his support to the ailing cricketer.
"The BCCI will continue to monitor Mr Gaekwad’s progress and is confident that he will come out of this phase strongly," an official release shared by the Indian cricket board's apex council read.
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"The board stands by Gaekwad’s family in this hour of crisis and will do whatever is essential for Gaekwad’s quick recovery," the release further said.
Kapil Dev, Sunil Gavaskar Among Former Cricketers To Request BCCI For Financial Aid For Gaekwad
Meanwhile, it is being learnt that former India batter Dilip Vengsarkar personally spoke to BCCI Treasurer Ashish Selar in relation to the case with the latter assured that the matter would be looked into. In addition the likes of the 1983 World Cup-winning captain Kapil Dev along with cricketers like Sunil Gavaskar, Mohinder Amarnath, Sandeep Patil, Madan Lal, Ravi Shastri and Kirti Azad had all spoken to BCCI seeking financial assistance for Gaekwad.
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As far as Gaekwad's international career is concerned, he played 40 Test matches and 15 ODIs for Team India, scoring 1985 runs in the longest format, while accumulating 269 runs in the limited-overs format. Gaekwad boasts of having scored over 12000 first-class runs. In addition, he has 143 wickets in first-class wicket too in his career with his right-arm offbreak bowling.
In international cricket, Gaekwad scalped 3 wickets, with 2 of them coming in Tests and the remaining one coming in ODIs. His first international match came in 1975, while his last one came in 1987.