In a statement, the secretary of the Bcci Jay Shah applications invited for five positions with 28 November as the deadline. The panel led by Chetan Sharma including Debasis Mohanty, Harvinder Singh and Sunil Joshi were one month away from completing two years as selectors.
Under the BCCI’s new constitution, a person can serve on a cricket committee for up to five years. BCCI had not nominated anyone when Abey Kuruvilla’s term ended earlier this year. This move is the first step towards an imminent overhaul of Indian cricket.
The job description for incoming recruiters clearly states, “Appoint the captain for the team in every format.”
TOI had reported on Nov. 12 that Rohit Sharma had spoken to the board about his role as captain of all formats. Sources say the board are keen to have a separate captain in the T20 format as they aim to build a new squad for the 2024 T20 World Cup.
While Rohit Sharma is very likely to continue as ODI captain up to next year’s home ODI World Cup, it will be interesting to see who the new group of selectors prepare to lead in the other two formats.
Chetan and his team underwent strict scrutiny during their tenure. When this committee was in charge, India lost the World Test Championship final, were knocked out of the 2021 T20 World Cup in the group stage, comfortably lost a Test series and an ODI series to South Africa and are not managed to reach the final of the Asian Cup before being beaten by England in the semi-finals of the 2022 T20 World Cup.
The way the selection committee carried out a captain change after Virat Kohli was also criticized in addition to not picking a stable team in a year. The foremen and selectors did not join. According to sources, team management was not happy with the way the recruiters were operating.
TOI has learned that coach Rahul Dravid had a serious falling out with Chetan after the IPL. Sources also said the team was uncomfortable with some of the recruiters getting too close to the team’s training sessions.
It is learned that Chetan refrained from attending training sessions on tour during the recent T20 World Cup campaign. The recruiters had decided they would not interact with the team unless asked.
The selectors were effectively warned after India’s disastrous Asian Cup campaign in September.
