BCCI Secretary Jay Shah believes his biggest achievement at the position since taking over in 2019 is conducting the 2020 edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL) amidst COVID-19 breakout across the world. The tournament had to postponed indefinitely as the COVID positive cases were on the rise in March-April itself and eventually, the competition took place from September 19 to November 10 in strict bubble in the UAE and behind the closed doors.
Mumbai Indians won the tournament to become only the second team to defend the title in IPL history. Coming back to Jay Shah, he is happy that the BCCI made a big tournament like IPL happen despite COVID being at its peak and at a time when competitions from other sports were cancelled. "My biggest achievement in my tenure was holding the 2020 IPL in UAE in the midst of coronavirus pandemic.
"The Olympics, English Premier League and French Open had already been postponed/cancelled. We created an isolation bubble within which we conducted the tournament. We demonstrated to the world what BCCI could achieve," Shah said while speaking to Times of India. During his tenure, the BCCI Secretary also introduced the much awaited Women's Premier League (WPL), a platform for young women cricketers to rub shoulders with the best cricketers in the world much like what IPL did for Men's cricket and also announced pay parity for Women cricketers.
"When I decided to create WPL, I had a lot of convincing to do. One of the arguments I used was that 51% of IPL viewership was female. When we had the women's series against Australia in Navi Mumbai, we made the entrance free and we got a full house. I also insisted on pay parity because this would encourage women to come out and play. After my decision, I am glad to inform you that ICC also announced pay parity in prize money for the Women's World cup. We have also introduced a sports psychologist for the women's team and hired Amol Mazumdar as a dedicated coach for them," Shah added.
