Former India seamer Debashish Mohanty has been inducted into the national junior selection panel in line with the Supreme Court Order passed on August 9.
"We have appointed Debashish Mohanty as the fifth member of the junior selection panel. Since SC order states that it needs to be five member panel, we had given the names to Cricket Advisory Committee," Rai said today.
"However Sachin (Tendulkar), Sourav (Ganguly) and VVS Laxman all declined as they had their own reasons. So among the list of names available we saw Debashish had the maximum international experience. So he has been appointed," Rai informed.
Tendulkar declined as his son Arjun is a contender for junior India selection while Ganguly is the CAB president and Laxman is a mentor with IPL franchise Sunrisers Hyderabad.
Mohanty had played 45 ODIs for India between 1997 and 2001. He played the 1999 World Cup in England.
"Ashish Kapoor had comeback earlier. And Amit Sharma has also made a comeback to the panel. Since one vacancy was still left after Venkatesh Prasad's resignation, we needed to fill it up at earliest," Rai said.
The other two members of the panel are Gyanendra Pandey and Rakesh Parikh.
The new selection committee will select the junior side for a Quadrangular tournament in Kolkata from September 9 followed by U19 Asia Cup in Dhaka from September 27.
"The ACC norms state that U19 Asia Cup squad has to be announced a month earlier. So we needed to get the panel ready," he added.
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