Former wicketkeeper-batsman MSK Prasad was named the new chairman of the Indian cricket team's selection panel on Wednesday. Prasad, 41, will lead a five-member panel, also comprising former cricketers Devang Gandhi, Jatin Paranjpe, Sarandeep Singh and Gagan Khoda. The announcement was made after the Board of Control for Cricket in India's 87th annual general meeting in Mumbai, where Ajay Shirke was also re-elected unopposed as the secretary.
This was also the first time that the board had invited applicants for the selection panel, as against the erstwhile zonal system of selection. This was one of the directives of the Supreme Court-appointed Justice Lodha panel, which was constituted to revamp the functioning of Indian cricket. However, all the new selectors belong to five different zones, but the BCCI maintained this was just a coincidence.
However, this was not before there was some confusion regarding the chief selector's name. Before the BCCI's official announcement came, a number of journalists and news organisations had already tweeted that Prasad is the new chief selector – only, they got the first name all wrong, like this one:
One can see why Venkatesh Prasad would have been a good choice for the position. He has taken 196 Test wickets for India, has served as the national team's bowling coach and also heads the junior selection panel. However, as it turned out, the Indian media had jumped the gun on this one, and Twitter was not going to spare them.
While most news organisations went ahead and deleted their erroneous tweets before putting out the name of the correct Prasad, some like ScoopWhoop admitted their mistake:
Finally, the BCCI made it official. Venkatesh Prasad had been retained as the chairman of the junior selection committee.
The tweeting did not stop there, as the next question on everyone's mind was: MSK who?
A quick Google and ESPNcricinfo stats search later, it came to be known that MSK Prasad had played six Tests and 17 One-Day Internationals for India.
In fact, two of the selection panel members had not played a single Test match – again completely in defiance of the Justice Lodha committee, which wanted only former Test cricketers on the panel.
Some Twitter users were not amused:
Others decided to have a laugh:
However, there were some, like this guy, who asked MSK Prasad and his team to be given a chance:
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