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MUMBAI: Sachin Tendulkar said the best tribute to Raj Singh Dungarpur would be for the Cricket Club of India to name their main gate after him.

He was speaking at a well-attended condolence meeting to mourn the death of one who headed the club for 14 long years.

The gates at Lord's are named after cricket legend WG Grace. And former India skipper, Nari Contractor, who also spoke on the occasion, revealed that the day Rajbhai passed away, the flag at Lord's the home of the Marylebone Cricket Club, flew at half mast as tribute to an international figure. Nari was coach at the CCI’s all-India academy which threw up players like Piyush Chawla and Ajinkya Rahane besides helping underprivileged players.

Another India skipper, Dilip Vengsarkar, recalled that Rajbhai had watched every one of his three Lord's hundred and profusely showered praise on him.

Sachin recalled the time when his family could not afford to send him for a month-long tour of UK with Star CC and Rajbhai got him a sponsor.

Also the day at the CCI when Raj Singh, then chairman of the selection committee was watching him, then just 14, bat in the nets. "It felt special. He told me to continue playing my natural game. When he was our manager in Pakistan he watched every stroke every delivery and his passion was tremendous. I dedicate my hundred in the Compaq final to him."

The CCI president, Badal Mittal, said "We are paying a respectful farewell to a father figure of diverse emotions and amazing eloquence."

RS Shetty, on behalf of the BCCI read out messages from Sharad Pawar, Shashank Manohar, Ali Bacher, and other board chiefs. "Rajbhai instituted the BCCI lifetime award, set up the National Academy and ensured a foreign physio went with the India side. When Raj Singh brought Sharad Pawar to the Indian dressing room in Pakistan, Sachin told him that maidan cricket needed to be made stronger if India was to produce natural cricketers. He had such a regard for Sachin that when he was not taking tablets, his close ones would say, 'Sachin has come' and it would work."

Shetty appealed to the CCI to resurrect the academy that Rajbhai had begun for all-India players. He said it would be sad that when Test cricket returned to the Brabourne this winter when Sri Lanka toured, Rajbhai would not be there.

Nandini Sardesai said Rajbhai would go any length to help cricketers.

Milind Rege, CCI cricket secretary, said "He was our college coach and got me a playing membership. The word 'no’ did not exist in his dictionary."

Among those present was hockey star Dhanraj Pillay who saide, "Raj Singh gave me club membership in the same year as Mukesh Ambani."

Journalist Khalid Ansari said CCI should build a cricket museum and name it after Raj Singh A Raj Singh schoolmate at Indore's Daly College, Sohail Shroff, said Rajbhai loved the CCI staff. He donated one lakh rupees towards a fund from where the staff could take loans.

He hoped members would help swell the fund as a tribute to Raj Singh Dungarpur.