Mumbai: After many a flip-flop,in a late night development on July 11, BCCI announced the name of Ravi Shastri as the the head coach of Indian cricket team. It was a day of utter chaos. BCCI officials, who had gathered here for their Special General Meeting that never took place, finally made the announcement of Shastri’s selection as Team India head coach to fill the vacancy created by Anil Kumble’s expressed desire not to continue in the role.
While a few former crickets were quick to laud BCCI for co-opting Zaheer Khan as bowling consultant, none raised their eye brows over Rahul Dravid’s selection as batting consultant for overseas tours – Everyone knows that none stand taller than Dravid, ‘The Wall‘ when it comes to battling overseas conditions!
BCCI, after sending initial feelers on Shastri’s appointment during late afternoon and later withdrawing the same by stating ‘no decision made on the coach yet’ in the evening created hara-kiri before finally coming out with a late night release confirming his appointment.
“As part of the process for selecting the Head Coach, the Cricket Advisory Committee comprising of Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly and VVS Laxman conducted the interviews and recommended these appointments in the best interest of the Indian Cricket”, stated the release scripted by Acting secretary Amith Chowdhury.
This decision came after Vinod Rai from the committee of administrators (COA) jumped into the fray, asking the CAC to announce the coach byTuesday at any cost even as influential CAC member Saurav Ganguly was in no hurry as he wanted to take Kohli into confidence before arriving at the final decision.
To substantiate BCCI’s statement “no decision yet on new coach yet’ , Former India captain and member of the BCCI’s Cricket Advisory Committee (CAC) Sourav Ganguly told reporters at the Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose International Airport at Kolkata that media reports about Ravi Shastri being named India coach was a “confusion” and nothing has been finalised yet .
The CAC, which interviewed five candidates – Shastri, Sehwag, Richard Pybus, Tom Moody and Lalchand Rajput – dramatically, put the announcement of the coach on hold on July 10. It raised the questions about the candidature of Shastri,the last minute entrant who till then was a near certainty to be named for the coveted post.
Incidentally Shastri, who enjoyed a good working relationship with Kohli and was the team director of the Indian team for two years (2014-2016), had applied for the job apparently on the insistence of none other than maestro Sachin Tendulkar.
It has been learned that though the committee was impressed with the presentation of Shastri, the pendulum swung in Sehwag’s favour considering his vision for the 2019 World Cup. It has also been learnt that Ganguly and Laxman backed the candidature of Sehwag with COA making it clear that the decision of the CAC would be final. In such a situation Sehwag should have been selected right away with 2:1 CAC votes ruling in his favour. However, it appears Sachin had his way since he had forced Shastri to bid for the coveted post and Kohli’s relationship with Shastri came in handy though the Indian captain had little say in day’s events as he was abroad.
Few doubts still remain in the minds of cricket buffs including
1.Was the announcement stage managed to get reaction from people on Shastri’s appointment before making it final?
2.Is Indian cricket administration at Cross-roads with multiple power centres including BCCI, COA,CAC and others bidding for the larger share of the power pie?
3.Is our cricket management is so poor where uncertainty rules throughout akin to T20 game?
4.Is the cricket administrative struture so weak, that infludential ex cricketers, current cricketers determine how it is administered and who should get what share of the pie?
