Pension, medical insurance cover and one-time ex-gratia payment for the recently-retired first-class players are some of the issues that former India player Kirti Azad wants to address if he wins players’ representative elections at the Indian Cricketers’ Association (ICA) polls on October 11.

Azad will be fighting against the former India players Anshuman Gaekwad and Dodda Ganesh for the ICA players’ representative to the all-important Apex Council of the BCCI. He released a 13-point election manifesto for the same, recently.

Azad, a former Delhi captain and member of the 1983 World Cup winning Indian team, is confident that he can “make a difference” to the lives of many first-class cricketers of yesteryears, who are living in anonymity, with distress and lack financial security.

“Me along with Ashok Malhotra (set to be new ICA president), Surinder Khanna (players’ representative at IPL Apex Council) are together as a group,” Azad told media.

With the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) elections less than 20 days away, the Delhi and District Cricket Association (DDCA) members have written to the Committee of Administrators (CoA) requesting for a re-election at the association in line with the August 9, 2018 order of the Supreme Court.

“Please take a note that the last election of DDCA was held well before the Supreme Court Judgment 9th August 2018 and registration of BCCI new constitution. DDCA whole election process was not as per the new constitution of BCCI. It was held under the old constitution of DDCA,” one of the members pointed.

“The DDCA had no provision of Apex council. There was no provision for representative of men and women cricket association. There was no single director for the apex council. The executive was formed with 16 Directors instead of 9 Directors as mentioned in BCCI new constitution. Cooling off period was also not as per BCCI new constitution which had barred several deserving members from contesting,” the member pointed.