The arrival of Maharashtra industry minister Narayan Rane to cast his vote at the Mumbai Cricket Association's elections here on Friday created a stir among those assembled.
The common refrain was, "here comes one more political bigwig eyeing the cricket pie".
And the reason too was obvious as everyone saw the commotion created by the scrambling TV cameramen and still photographers to gain vantage positions to shoot Rane's entry into the polling booth.
There are already two top politicians in the MCA, president Sharad Pawar, and new entrant Vilasrao Deshmukh, who was elected unopposed as one of the two vice-presidents.
Now the entry of Rane into the MCA politics in future cannot be ruled out.
Over the years, politicians of various hues and affiliations have found out that cricket is the right vehicle to gain wide media attention.
And to their credit, quite a few of them have contributed significantly over the years to the development of the game's infrastructure.
Who can forget the stellar role played by the late Sesharao Wankhede, who took it up as a personal challenge when the MCA was snubbed by Vijay Merchant, then president of the Cricket Club of India, over the former's demand for an increased number of seats at the Brabourne Stadium for Tests.
Miffed by the intransigent stand taken by Merchant not to concede a single extra seat to the MCA, the Test match hosting association, at the CCI's Brabourne, Wankhede vowed he would build a new stadium in time to host the Test against Clive Lloyd's West Indians in the 1974-75 season.
And within a record six months a new stadium, named fittingly after Wankhede, had risen at the old Lloyd's Reclamation Ground at the other end of the landmark Churchgate Railway station, in between the playing areas occupied by the Mumbai Hockey Association and the University Stadium.
The fifth and final Test, the climax to a superbly fought series between Mansur Ali Khan Pataudi's Indian squad and Lloyd's West Indians, was the first-ever Test held at this stadium which is now undergoing renovation.
Wankhede, who ruled Mumbai cricket from 1963-64 to 1986-87, also became the Cricket Board's president for two years, 1980-81 and 1981-82, to pave the path for other politicians such as NKP Salve, Madhavrao Scindia and Pawar to tread and become board chiefs.
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