Kapil Dev-led CAC's Request to Select Support Staff for Team India Turned Down

The Supreme Court-appointed Committee of Administrators (CoA) have turned down the Cricket Advisory Committee (CAC) request to pick the support staff for the Indian team due to paucity of time to get the right permission.

The three-member CAC featuring former India cricketers Kapil Dev, Anshuman Gaekwad and Shantha Rangaswamy had sent a letter to COA requesting participation in process to select the support coach after picking Ravi Shastri as head coach on Friday (August 16).

"There is just not enough time for COA to take a decision like this. The CAC can only select the head coach according to the new BCCI constitution," sources close to COA informed CricketNext.

"The COA would have needed special permission from Supreme Court or the Amicus Curiae PS Narasimha to allow CAC to pick the support staff. There's not enough time for that," the source added.

The selection of the support staff will be held over four days from Monday (August 19) to Thursday (August 22) in Mumbai by the men's senior selection committee headed by MSK Prasad.

According to the new BCCI constitution, the powers to select the support staff are vested to the BCCI CEO Rahul Johri. However, in a COA meeting, it was advised by the BCCI legal team that the CEO is only a signatory to the process.

The COA decided to allow the selection committee because that’s protocol laid down in the constitution for selecting the support staff of the Indian junior team. The trio of Vinod Rai, Diana Edulji and Ravi Thodge decided to follow the logic that same rule can be applied to the men’s senior team as well.

The support staff of Sanjay Bangar (batting coach), Bharat Arun (bowling coach), R. Sridhar (fielding coach) and administrative manager Sunil Subramaniam are on a 45-day contract extension and automatic entrants into the selection process.

The likes of former selector Vikram Rathour have applied for batting coach job along with Praveen Amre as well as England’s Jonathan Trott and Mark Ramprakash.

Bharat Arun is expected to be retained as bowling coach but likes of Venkatesh Prasad, Sunil Joshi and foreign candidates like Steffan Jones and Clint McKay have applied for the position.

Fielding coach R. Sridhar will face tough competition from the likes of South African Jonty Rhodes. Shastri, who has a new term extending to 2021 T20 World Cup, though threw his weight behind Sridhar in an interview to BCCI.tv.

“Over the last 4-5 years the biggest improvement has been in fielding and endeavour is to make this side the best fielding unit in the world. So it’s a clear diktat that whoever wants to play in this team, that particular player’s fielding has to be at the highest level, specially in white-ball cricket,” Shastri said in the interview.