Mumbai, Apr 6 (PTI) Former India opener and coach Lalchand Rajput has made an appeal to the newly-appointed Ombudsman of the Mumbai Cricket Association (MCA) Justice Vijaya Tahilramani (retd) to reinstate the erstwhile Cricket Improvement Committee (CIC) headed by him. The 59-year-old Rajput, who played two Tests and four ODIs, headed the CIC of the Mumbai Cricket Association, which comprised former India Test players Raju Kulkarni and Sameer Dighe. “Request for immediate actions till matter is fairly heard and resolved – 1. To reinstate CIC, which was dissolved on 18th February 2021 till upcoming AGM,” Rajput wrote in a plea to the MCA Ombudsman, a copy of which is in possession of PTI. Rajput, who is also the current Zimbabwe coach, also requested the appointment of the new CIC as “invalid”. “….declare the appointment of new CIC under the Chairmanship of Jatin Paranjpe invalid till next AGM via email dated 20 February 2021, where such appointments are to be made as per MCA constitution …..,” Rajput further stated in the petition. Rajput was removed by the MCA office-bearers after his CIC was appointed for three years. Instead, the office bearers appointed Jatin Paranjape, Vinod Kambli and Nilesh Kulkarni as new CIC members after the earlier committee was dissolved. It is learnt that Rajput-led committee was dissolved on the pretext of ‘Conflict of Interest’, a charge that the current Zimbabwe coach has vehemently denied. In the long petition, Rajput has given the entire background of the sequence of events, on how the committee was appointed and then how it was dissolved by the cricket body. It must be mentioned that it was the committee led by Rajput that had appointed Ramesh Powar as the Mumbai head coach despite a large section of office-bearers wanting Amol Mujumdar to be at the helm. Under Powar, Mumbai led by Prithvi Shaw put up a brilliant show to win the Vijay Hazare Trophy, literally crushing all the opposition teams.