The Committee of Administrators (CoA) has recently referred former India player W.V. Raman’s selection as coach of the Indian women’s team to the BCCI Ombudsman Justice (Retd.) D.K. Jain. The CoA had resolved to approach the Ombudsman after its meeting in Delhi in April.
The process followed for Raman’s selection last December divided the CoA members Vinod Rai and Diana Edulji with the latter calling it “unconstitutional”.
Diana had contended that when the Cricket Advisory Committee (CAC) comprising Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly and V.V.S. Laxman was in place, there was no need to appoint an Ad-hoc Committee in Kapil Dev, Aunshuman Gaekwad and Shantha Rangaswamy.
Representing the CAC, Laxman had told the CoA that they needed time and also their role to be put in black and white. But Rai went ahead and constituted the Ad-hoc Committee.
Queries raised
The questions that were asked then were: Whether the CoA had the authority to appoint an ad hoc committee, whether Raman, the batting coach at the NCA could have been asked to travel with the women’s team to the West Indies and whether the three-member ad-hoc committee attracted the conflict of interest rule, being part of the steering committee for the formation of the Indian Cricketers Association.
The CoA — which now has three members now with the addition of Lt. Gen. (retd.) Ravi Thodge — would want Jain to give his opinion soon, because, it is keen to continue with the same panel to choose the head coach and other support staff of the men’s team.
It appears that the BCCI GM, Operations, Saba Karim, has already spoken to the three former India players.