CoA names Debasis Mohanty as replacement for Venkatesh Prasad in BCCI junior selection committee

The Supreme Court-appointed Committee of Administrators on Friday appointed former India fast bowler Debasis Mohanty as a member of India’s junior selection committee after the Supreme Court restored the number of members in each selection committee to five members. Mohanty took the place left vacant after Venkatesh Prasad had resigned from his position as chief selector in March.

The selection committee had been reduced to a three-member panel as per the directions of the Lodha Committee, but the SC on August 9 restored the number to five.

In a mail, accessed by Hindustan Times, the CoA told the junior selectors and board officials that even though all the original members of the junior selection committee met the criteria as per new constitution of the BCCI, the committee had written to the Cricket Advisory Committee (CAC) and sought their views on the matter.

But the members — Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly and VVS Laxman — couldn’t be consulted and so the CoA took the call of appointing Mohanty to fill the vacancy left by Prasad.

“While two members have expressed their inability to be part of the consultative process for different reasons, the third did not provide his views or a response. While the CoA would have preferred to take the views of the CAC into consideration before constituting the junior cricket committee, the CoA has been informed that a meeting of the junior selection committee needs to be convened at the earliest to pick two India U-19 teams participating in a Under-19 Quadrangular One Day Tournament to be played at Kolkata (which begins on 9th September 2018) and the India Under-19 Team for the Youth Asia Cup to be played at Dhaka from September 27.

“In the above circumstances, the CoA is now reconstituting the men’s junior selection committee and constituting the same as the junior cricket committee by reinstating those selectors who had not been permitted to function as aforesaid and appointing Debasis Mohanty to fill the vacancy created on account of Venkatesh Prasad having earlier resigned,” the letter read.

The other selectors in the junior committee are Ashish Kapoor, Rakesh Parikh, Gyanendra Pandey and Amit Sharma.

First Published: Aug 24, 2018 19:22 IST