Former BCCI chief of selection panel Chetan Sharma and selector Harvinder Singh, whose tenure recently came to an end when the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) opted not to renew their contracts, have reapplied for the job announced by the board some time ago.
After the T20 World Cup, where India’s journey ended in the semi-finals, the BCCI had decided not to extend the tenure of their selection committee. New applications were invited and the BCCI will have a new panel in the coming weeks.
Including Sharma and Harvinder Singh, more than 60 applicants applied for the post, but the other two members of the panel, Sunil Joshi and Debashish Mohanty, chose not to reapply. The BCCI has not received any applications from ‘big’ names, except for some former cricketers who want to join the five-member selection committee.
Under the criteria set by the Board, candidates must have played 7 Test matches or 30 first-class matches or 10 ODIs and 20 first-class matches. The applicant should have retired from the game at least five years ago.
BCCI is yet to form a new Cricket Advisory Committee (CAC) following the departure of RP Singh
Interestingly, one of the applicants is the current Chairman of the Selection Committee, S Sharath. Some other prominent names reported to have applied are Venkatesh Prasad, Dodda Ganesh, Maninder Singh, Nikhil Chopra, Atul Wassan, Reetinder Singh Sodhi, Nayan Mongia, SS Das, Salil Ankola, Sameer Dighe, Ajay Ratra, Gyanendra Pandey, Jacob Martin , Subroto Banerjee and Iqbal Siddiqui.
Apart from this, the BCCI is yet to appoint a new Cricket Advisory Committee (CAC) which is left with one member Sulakshana Naik. This after former pacemaker RP Singh left the committee and joined the Mumbai Indians IPL franchise as a talent scout.
The new selection panel will have to “appoint captains for the team in each format”.
Hardik Pandya is the front runner taking over Rohit Sharma as captain in T20I format. This is due to his performances as captain in Ireland and recent tours in New Zealand and for leading the Gujarat Titans to the IPL 2022 title in their debut year.
As for Rohit, he is already 35 years old and the board may want to keep him as captain for next year’s 50-over World Cup on home soil, while Pandya will be groomed as Indian captain for the next T20 World Cup in 2024, which will be played in the West Indies and the United States.
