Ex-India star Farokh Engineer wants ECB to invite 'Pataudi's wife Sharmila Tagore and son Saif Ali Khan to present medal' to Tendulkar-Anderson Trophy winning captain

Former India cricketer and a close friend of late Mansur Ali Khan Pataudi, Farokh Engineer, wants the England Cricket Board (ECB) to invite Sharmila Tagore (Mansur's wife) and his son Saif Ali Khan to present the medal for the winning captain of the Tendulkar-Anderson Trophy 2025.

Farokh Engineer also erred in handling the renaming of the India-England Test series trophy, and the decision to introduce the winning captain's medal after his former teammate's family name was clearly an afterthought to "appease" supporters like him. The ECB instituted the Pataudi Trophy for the India-England series in 2007, until renaming it to the Anderson-Tendulkar trophy before the start of the ongoing five-match series.

Engineer joined the likes of Sunil Gavaskar to get disappointed by the decision, but at the same time, he feels that the achievements of Sachin Tendulkar and James Anderson were unquestionable. Cricketing god Tendulkar approached the ECB, which led to the home board introducing a winning captain's medal after the Pataudi family.

"The whole issue is debatable but they have kept the name. I hope they invite Sharmila Tagore (Mansur's wife) and his son Saif Ali Khan to present the medal. Last series they didn't do that. Fingers were pointed at ECB for that. Hopefully they give them due credit "Farokh Engineer told PTI.

"Well Tiger Pataudi was a great friend of mine. Great colleague of mine. We played a lot of Test cricket. Great heritage, great family. I was most happy when the trophy was named after him back in 2007," the Manchester-based Engineer told PTI.

"On one hand I was very disappointed that the Pataudi name was removed, I would love Tiger's name to go on but instead powers that be decided with Anderson and Sachin who are legends of the game.

"It (introducing Pataudi medal) was obviously an afterthought, they should have announced it in the beginning that would have more credibility but at least they have done something. Common sense has prevailed and hope the Pataudi name always remains."

England are currently leading 1-0 in the five-Test match series after a dominating five-wicket win at Headingley. Team India are currently preparing for the second Test, and there are reports that Jasprit Bumrah will miss that clash because of workload management. India head coach Gautam Gambhir and chief selector Ajit Agarkar earlier revealed that the speedster will only feature in three Tests. However, Engineer wants him to play as many games as possible.

"He is your trump card. He needs to be mothballed as he is far too precious for the Indian team. Hope he plays majority of the games," the 87-year-old added.

The second Test match between India and England will take place from 2-6 July at Edgbaston Stadium in Birmingham.