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He was speaking at the screening of a 30-minute documentary on the history of Indian cricket made by Srenik and Sujata Sett and launched by the Public Diplomacy Division of the Ministry of External Affairs.
“If the entire nation can unite during the game of cricket, cannot we show unity in other areas?” Mukherjee asked.
Many sports personalities including Ajit Wadekar, Syed Kirmani, Dola Banerjee and Leslie Claudius were present during the occasion. Mukherjee spoke at length about cricket’s journey in India from an elite sport to a game at the grassroots.
He also recalled the night of June 25, 1983, when India defeated the mighty West Indies in the World Cup final at Lords.
“Late at night, Mrs Indira Gandhi broke the news to me. She called me up. I still remember her words - it’s a glorious occasion, we can now walk with our heads held high,” he recalled.
Another anecdote was from 1982, when Mukherjee was offered the chairman’s job by the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI). “I didn’t want to be chairman, but they kept insisting. Eventually, Mrs Gandhi helped me out. Later, NKP Salve became the Board’s president, and I became the Finance Minister,” Mukherjee recalled.
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