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Reports are that the England Cricket Board is planning to ‘retire’ the Pataudi trophy and it might come into effect from the upcoming series in June.
Sharmila Tagore presents the Pataudi Trophy to England’s captain Alastair Cook in 2014 (Picture credit: AFP)
The England Cricket Board is planning to retire the Pataudi Trophy, the prize awarded to the winning team between the Indian and English Test teams, with just over two months remaining for a five-Test series, which begins on June 20 at Leeds, according to a report in Cricbuzz.
Reports are that the England Cricket Board is planning to ‘retire’ the trophy and it might come into effect from the upcoming series in June when the Indian side will travel to England.
The exact reason for the step to retire the trophy isn’t known but it might not be a surprise if another trophy with the names of recent legends from the two nations comes into being.
This is not something we’ll be able to offer you a comment on,” a spokesperson for ECB told Cricbuzz.
According to the report, the family of Pataudi, a former India skipper who represented the nation in 46 Tests between 1961 to 1975, has been made aware of it.
That is the understanding from the ECB. Trophies are retired after some time,” a source close to the Pataudi family told Cricbuzz.
Actress Sharmila Tagore, wife of the late Pataudi, has expressed her unhappiness over how they were treated by the England Cricket Board earlier.
“The English team was taken away for photo opportunities and to celebrate, and Tiger was left standing by the trophy. Andrew Strauss, the English captain at the time, noticed Tiger standing unsure of what to do and went over to him,” Tagore told in 2018 to Sportstar.
“Tiger handed him the trophy, but this exchange was neither photographed nor televised. This was in August. We had gone to London especially at the invitation of the ECB for the presentation of the Pataudi Trophy, and so we were naturally a little confused that things had not gone as planned as late as the official lunch time of the same day as the match,” Tagore added.
Pataudi passed away in September 2011 at the age of 70 because of respiratory failure. The concept of retiring a trophy isn’t common, but there are examples of it happening in cricket.
The Wisden Trophy, played between England and the Windies, was retired, and the new prize was renamed the Richards-Botham Trophy.