'BCCI has nothing to do with players' retirement'

Rahul Dravid maybe struggling to get runs but BCCI today refused to put a time-line for his retirement, saying it is up to the batsman to decide when to hang up his boots.

Rajiv Shukla, Chairman of the BCCI Finance Committee, said the decision of retirement is best left to the players and the board has nothing to do with that.

"Rahul is a talented, quality batsman. The decision of how long he should play or when he should retire, is up to him only. BCCI has nothing to do with that. It is for the player to decide how long he wants to play," Shukla said.

Talking about former captains Sourav Ganguly and Anil Kumble, Shukla felt though it would not be possible to fill their void overnight, India still had a good pool of talented players who can step in their shoes.

" Sourav Ganguly and Kumble were great players and their retirement is a great loss for Indian cricket. Youngsters will have to do extremely well to reach to that level.

"Having said that, we have good replacements in Amit Mishra, Virat Kohli, Pragyan Ojha and Piyush Chawla, who are doing quite well," he said.

Shukla, who was in the city to oversee the preparations for the India-England one-day match at Green Park stadium on November 20, said the state government was co-operating with the Uttar Pradesh Cricket Association in conducting the match.