The BCCI on Friday night decided to sack all four senior men’s national selectors following another disappointing T20 World Cup campaign. The Chetan Sharma-led panel, including Debasis Mohanty, Harvinder Singh, and Sunil Joshi, was one month shy of completing two years as selectors.
In a press release, BCCI secretary Jay Shah invited applications for five positions with November 28 being the deadline.
According to the new BCCI constitution, a person can serve in a cricket committee for up to five years. BCCI had not appointed anyone when Abey Kuruvilla’s tenure ended earlier this year. This move is the first step towards bringing about an impending overhaul in Indian cricket.
However, the Times of India reported that one particular point in the job description for the incoming selectors clearly states: “Appoint captain for the team in each format.”
TOI also reported that Rohit Sharma has been in talks with the BCCI about his captaincy in all three formats and even the board is keen to have a separate captain in the T20 format as it aims to build a fresh team for the 2024 T20 World Cup.
While it is most likely that Rohit Sharma would continue as the ODI captain till the ODI World Cup at home next year, it will be interesting to see who the new set of selectors groom to lead in the other two formats.
Meanwhile, much has been reported about the downfall of Chetan Sharma and his selection panel, as the Indian team lost the World Test Championship final, got knocked out of the 2021 T20 World Cup in the group stage, comfortably lost a Test series and ODI series in South Africa and failed to make the final of Asia Cup.
Things came to a head after India was humiliatingly knocked out of the T20 World Cup 2022 by England in the semi-finals, losing by 10 wickets.
According to sources, the team management was not happy with the way selectors operated and coach Rahul Dravid had a major falling out with Chetan Sharma after the IPL as the team was uncomfortable with some of the selectors getting too close to the team’s practice sessions.
The selectors were effectively put on notice after India’s disastrous Asia Cup campaign in September.
(Times of India inputs)
