The Board of Control for Cricket in India’s Committee of Administrators, while hailing the appointment of Ravi Shastri as Anil Kumble’s successor on Wednesday, were concerned by the Cricket Advisory Committee’s decision to bolster the support staff in addition to selecting the coach, reported the Times of India.
“We are going to be looking at this very seriously. They have clearly gone beyond the brief,” a CoA was quoted as saying.
According to Mumbai Mirror the CoA will review the decision of appointing the support staff during its meeting in Mumbai on Saturday.
The CoA had reportedly instructed the BCCI to only conduct the interviews for the post of the national team’s coach. There wasn’t any mention for either inviting or selecting applicants for additional roles. Along with Shastri, former skipper Rahul Dravid was selected as overseas batting consultant and Zaheer Khan as the bowling coach.
In previous regimes, the onus was on the respective coaches to pick the support staff, as was the case with the ill-fated Greg Chappell regime, and with his successors Gary Kirsten and Duncan Fletcher.
Conflict of interest, as mentioned by former CoA member Ramchandra Guha, is said to have been a major concern for the Supreme Court-ordered committee. Apart from his new role within the Indian side, Dravid is also the coach of the India ‘A’ and U-19 teams.
There is a concern among CoA members that showing Shastri who the deciding authority is might have played a part in the CAC selecting the support staff.
As for bowling coach Zaheer Khan, he hasn’t officially announced his retirement from domestic cricket, and was a part of the Indian Premier League, captaining Delhi Daredevils.
It is a known fact that even when Ravi Shastri was interviewed for the job last year, the former India all-rounder had made it very clear that he would want to continue with the same support staff he had when he was the Team India Director.
However, CAC member Sourav Ganguly told Mumbai Mirror that the committee had discussed the issue of support staff members with Shastri and Kohli and the final announcement was made only after the former was on board.
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