Sourav Ganguly is known as the Bengal Tiger. But it was Rahul Dravid who listened attentively as environmentalists and wildlife conservationists discussed ways of preserving the environment and saving the tiger.

“The tiger is a wonderful symbol of our ecosystem. We need to protect it,” the Indian cricketer said.

Dravid had flown in to the capital on Tuesday to attend a conference on ecosystems, climate change and national development at the Teen Murti Bhavan. The former India captain listened attentively sitting in the back row.

“As a child I was always in love with forests and wildlife. I came to listen and learn from different experts on climate change and environment protection,” he said.

Environmentalist Bittu Sahgal, who had invited Rahul to the conference, said, “If we want to look into climate change as a serious issue, we would need credible youth icons like Rahul to highlight it,” he said.

Former cricketers Sourav Ganguly, Bishan Singh Bedi alongwith Angus Fraser, Clive Lloyd and Bob Willis will assess how the game has changed over the years at ICC History Conference in Oxford this week.

Leading administrators, academics, historians and statisticians will also gather to reflect on the past 100 years at the conference to be held on Wednesday and Thursday as part of the ICC’s centenary celebrations.

“One of the key themes of the ICC’s centenary year is tradition, to use 2009 as an opportunity to look back at the game’s rich history. The history conference should be a fantastic occasion,” ICC President David Morgan said in a statement.

Former ICC President Ehsan Mani and the organisation’s first Chief Executive David Richards will come together to reflect upon the big issues they had to deal with during their times at the helm of the global game.

The ICC began as the Imperial Cricket Conference in 1909 with just three members, Australia, England and South Africa.

A century later it has 104 members and its development over those 100 years will be charted by a host of experts including Sir Hilary Beckles, the Pro-Vice-Chancellor and Principal and Professor of Economic and Social History of the University of the West Indies and Brian Stoddart, the former Vice-Chancellor of La Trobe University, Australia.

Women’s cricket past and present will be represented by former England captain Rachael Heyhoe-Flint, who lifted the inaugural women’s World Cup in 1973, as well as current captain Charlotte Edwards and team-mate Ebony Rainford-Brent, the latter duo part of the squad that holds the ICC Women’s World Cup, Twenty20 World Cup and the Ashes.

As reports of former India captain Sourav Ganguly’s chance of making it to cricket administration are doing the rounds, Bengal formers felt that the left-hand batsman is capable of doing good job there as well.

“As a captain Sourav was very good and as a cricket administrator also he should be fine,” former India player and national selector Ashok Malhotra said.

“Sourav is very much welcome in cricket administration provided he can devote the time required. He has to decide whether would continue to play or work as a cricket administration,” Malhotra added.

Another former cricketer and national selector Sambaran Banerjee also felt that Ganguly’s knowledge about the game would be beneficial for the Indian cricket.

“It would be a welcome move. The more technical people like him join the cricket administration, the better. The Cricket Association of Bengal would definitely get the benefit of his vast experience,” he said.

Former ICC chief and currently CAB president Jagmohan Dalmiya also earlier welcomed Ganguly’s possible entry into the administration.

According to report available Ganguly would be attending the forthcoming CAB Annual General Meeting on July 31 and is likely to be included in the working committee thereafter.

That John Buchanan, the former coach of the Australian national team and the Knight Riders IPL squad, had a troubled relationship with Sourav Ganguly and Shane Warne is no secret.

What comes as a revelation, though, are the swipes he has taken at Sunil Gavaskar, Yuvraj Singh, Harbhajan Singh, Kevin Pietersen, Shoaib Akhtar, Vijay Mallya and Mark Ramprakash in his just-released book, ‘The Future of Cricket: The Rise of Twenty20′.

The book deals with IPL and T20. Yet, it is much more likely that attention will be focused on its criticism of some of cricket’s biggest stars.

The swipe at Gavaskar comes while Buchanan is talking about a franchisee meeting with IPL bosses in Goa in February this year. When he suggested that more international players be allowed to figure in the playing XI, Buchanan claims, the IPL administrators decided to refer the concept to the technical committee headed by Gavaskar. “What this means is that any ideas that affect the way T20 might be played are referred to a committee chaired by a person who is blinkered by bias and tradition,” the former Aussie coach concludes.

Buchanan has taken a swipe at several Indian cricketers but has also had a few good words to say about former Indian skipper Sourav Ganguly in his just released book.

In the course of a chapter on Ganguly, in which he sometimes freely praises the former Indian skipper and even hands out left-handed compliments while maintaining that he is unsuitable for T20, he talks of Ganguly as “the model for the new breed of confident and combative Indian cricketers” akin to Ian Chappell for the Aussies.

However, Buchanan goes on to take a dig at dashing southpaw Yuvraj Singh while comparing him with Ganguly. “Yuvraj Singh in a sense tries to be a modern-day Ganguly, but I don’t think he has the charisma or the dignity with which Ganguly carries himself”.

He is quick to clarify that he is not saying Yuvraj has no charisma or dignity, but the damage already done is compounded by adding that the Mohali team coach Tom Moody had told him “Yuvraj would just walk off after training, leaving all his gear and rubbish because he was used to someone else picking up after him”.

As for Bhajji, he talks of how the Indian offie is “good at dishing out treatment, lighting the fire, and then finding an appropriate means to camouflage his action”.

Talking of the Bhajji-Andrew Symonds showdown during the Test series in Australia in 2007-08, Buchanan says of Harbhajan, “in that instance he dished it out, but when it came to his turn he was not able to receive it back so well”.

He then resorts to national stereotypes when he says: “Australians are direct and expect people to be direct back to them… someone who hides behind the protection of a captain or management or umpires, saying it was not me, such as Harbhajan has done, infuriates Australians. That is not the way Australians approach the game.”

Kevin Pietersen is quoted by Buchanan as saying on the eve of the Stanford Superstars versus England match that “I have a lot of mates doing it tough at the moment, people losing their jobs. There is no way I want to see people carrying on like clowns.”

Yet, says Buchanan, there was no hint of Pietersen suggesting that players were being paid “obscene or over-inflated” sums or of any social responsibility in “dispersing or donating or sponsoring some of those friends who he said he knew were ‘doing it tough’.” All this in a chapter entitled The Chase for Cash.

There’s a chapter entitled The Shock of Shoaib, where Buchanan writes about how another former Aussie coach, Greg Chappell had warned him before the first IPL season: “He (Ganguly) won’t be your biggest problem…Shoaib will…He will make Warney (Shane Warne) look like a highly disciplined fitness fanatic in comparison.” For sheer economy of effort – three people swiped at in one short passage – that one takes the cake.

Shah Rukh Khan is among the lucky few who come in for praise in Buchanan’s book. There is an entire chapter on what a wonderful and humble person Shah Rukh is and how he was always around to buck up and motivate the Knight Riders.

Former India captain Sourav Ganguly looked suave in formals as he turned up for his first day in office on Wednesday as member of the BCCI’s technical committee.

It was a remarkable occasion for the left-hander, who had inadvertently or otherwise spent the last five to six years of his tenure as player rubbing the administration the wrong way.

He walked into the board’s headquarters, spent a good three hours with top officials and other members of the committee, discussed the sport, its administration, a few technicalities and walked out to address the media.

“I hope I can do something for the game,” he said, before questions ranging from India’s current form to Rahul Dravid’s comeback in the One-day team and even the ongoing Ashes were thrown at him.

Ganguly has just begun his new innings and, as he mentioned said on Tuesday, the former batsman looks all set to prove a point in the game off the field too. For starters, the Board has given him the responsibility to go through reports submitted by match-referees on domestic pitches and assess them. On Wednesday though, he didn’t speak a lot on pitches as much as he did on other issues concerning the game. He was happy for Dravid who has made his comeback in the ODI team and said, “He’s so good in all forms of the game. His inclusion will always be a bonus.”

Ganguly also had a few words of advice – of course, first hand – for Irfan Pathan, who has not been picked among the Champions Trophy probables. “Irfan should look at the example of Dravid and (Ashish) Nehra. If you keep performing, you are bound to bounce back,” he said.

To hear Ganguly speak so authoritatively on how performances in Indian cricket have always counted and that hard work pays off, was certainly interesting. After all, his run-ins with the board as player, whether defending himself or his players, had almost become legendary.

That he’s also well-versed as ever on issues in international cricket was soon visible when he declared Aussies as favourites to win the Ashes. “After 10 years or so, England and Australia will start as equal favourites but I still have my money on Australia,” he said.

The board is bound to use Ganguly’s experience more than ever should he win the upcoming Cricket Association of Bengal (CAB) elections. Moreover, to have a BCCI post, Ganguly also has to attend a minimum of two annual general meetings (AGMs), the first of which will come up in September this year.

It is no secret that Ganguly has his sights set on a successful stint as a cricket administrator.

Until then, of course, Ganguly will have to be satisfied being part of committees that decides on the technical aspects of the game. For starters, his boss in the technical committee is none other than Sunil Gavaskar.

Eight months after he retired from international cricket, Sourav Ganguly is all set to launch a new innings that could well see him anointed the BCCI president in five year’s time.

Please don’t dismiss this as a mere birthday wish of a left-handed stylist, who is celebrating his 37th birthday on Wednesday.

This is a realistic possibility that no one is prepared to rule out. In fact, many in the BCCI are open to the idea of Sourav becoming the BCCI president in 2014 when it is East Zone’s turn to put up a candidate for the top job, for it would necessarily mean the end of the Jagmohan Dalmiya era.

Of course, conditions do apply and the odds against him are tall, but when has that bothered the bespectacled leader who has made a career out of proving critics wrong? Sourav, for one, has made up his mind to enter the domain of cricket administration.

“I am convinced that I can play a positive role,” Sourav said in course of an exclusive interview at his Behala residence. “Having played the game at the highest level and being part of the system, I know what it takes to make a difference,” he added.

The entry point for Sourav has to be the CAB, his home association that is in a state of rut under the once powerful Dalmiya. Rumours are rife that Dalmiya’s rivals have all but convinced Sourav to contest the CAB polls later this month. However, Sourav is not prepared to rush into it.

“At some point, I will find a way to get into the CAB where people have known me since I was a kid. I have respect for them and I am sure they will appreciate my concern for Bengal cricket and the difference I can make. I am in no hurry,” Sourav said.

To get into the CAB, of course, he has to beat Dalmiya at his own game. Sourav is well aware that it took Dalmiya’s foes in the BCCI close to 15 years to throw him out. Sourav’s supporters reckon that under Dada’s leadership, the task of capturing the CAB can be achieved in a much smaller time frame.

Unless he is convinced about the numbers on his side in a 121-strong vote bank, Sourav will not jump into the poll fray this time around. He would rather wait and watch for another year. It suits him because it still leaves him with enough time to meet all the criteria to contest for BCCI’s top post.

Suggest that to Sourav, and he laughs. “It’s a possibility, but right now I am not looking that far ahead. I intend to take it step by step. Five years is a long time…,” sighed the man who could well be the most powerful man in world cricket by the time he celebrates his 40th birthday.