MCA Commits Rs 500-Crore Fund for Mumbai's Grassroots Cricket
The Mumbai Cricket Association has put a serious number on its vision for the future: Rs 500 crore, ring-fenced for the city’s grassroots cricket over the next decade.
At its annual general meeting at Wankhede Stadium on Friday, MCA president Ajinkya Naik confirmed that the association will build a Rs 500-crore corpus dedicated to school, college and maidan cricket — the lifeblood of Mumbai’s famed cricket ecosystem.
Naik explained that the body has sharply scaled up its ambition. “In the last AGM, we contributed Rs 100 crores and this time we did increase it to Rs 500 crores for our grassroots cricketers, clubs like maidan clubs, school clubs and college clubs,” he said after the meeting.
Endowment-Style Model for City’s Clubs
The structure is clear and aggressive. There is already Rs 100 crore parked in a corpus. Now the MCA will add Rs 40 crore every year for the next 10 years to build the Rs 500-crore fund.
The principal amount will remain untouched. The interest it generates will fuel the game at its base.
“It’s like an endowment fund. You keep this Rs 500 crores in a fixed deposit, and from that fixed deposit, the interest gets distributed. That is for providing kits, facilities, etc. So it depends on the clubs and how they want to use it. Sometimes they use it for logistics, sometimes they use it for cricket equipment, so there are different ways,” Naik said.
The money will be distributed among the MCA’s affiliated clubs, many of whom operate on tight budgets despite producing generations of cricketers for Mumbai and India. For them, this is not a cosmetic gesture; it is oxygen — for nets, pitches, gear, travel and the day-to-day grind that keeps young cricketers in the game.
Honouring Legends at Wankhede
The AGM did not stop at the future. It turned to history as well.
Three lounges at Wankhede will be named after Sachin Tendulkar, Madhav Mantri and Ajinkya Rahane. A committee has been formed to identify and finalise the specific spaces for these lounges inside the stadium.
It is a symbolic move, but a telling one. Tendulkar, the face of Mumbai cricket for a generation. Mantri, a pillar of the city’s cricketing structure. Rahane, a modern Mumbai product who rose from the maidans to captain India. Their names will now be embedded in the matchday experience at the city’s most famous venue.
The association is also moving ahead with plans to install a statue of Dilip Vengsarkar inside the Wankhede complex, adding another icon of Mumbai’s batting tradition to the stadium’s landscape.
Governance Call Deferred to BCCI
Away from finances and tributes, the looming question of sports governance also hovered over the meeting.
The National Sports Governance Act, 2025, has become a talking point among administrators after a recent query from the Supreme Court. On that front, though, the MCA has chosen not to chart its own course.
“We have not discussed it. We will go by the BCCI decision,” Naik said, making it clear that the association will align its stance with the national board when the time comes.
For now, the message from Wankhede is simpler and louder: Mumbai’s cricket nursery is getting a financial backbone to match its reputation. The next generation will still have to earn their runs and wickets in the heat and dust of the maidans — but they may finally have the resources to match their ambition.
