Chetan Sharma stays on as chief of new selection committee
Former India all-rounder is the only member of the previous selection committee retained in the new set of five members named by BCCI on Saturday
Chetan Sharma is the sole survivor from the previous committee in the reconstituted national cricket selection panel announced by the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) on Saturday. The former India all-rounder will retain his position as chairman of the body, BCCI said in a statement.
The Cricket Advisory Committee of former Test batter Ashok Malhotra, Jatin Paranjape and Sulakshana Naik interviewed the candidates and made its recommendations to BCCI.
Besides Sharma (North Zone), the rest of the selection panel comprises former Test opener Shiv Sundar Das (Central), former pacers Subroto Banerjee (East) and Salil Ankola (West) and former Tamil Nadu batter Sridharan Sharath (South).
Sharath, who is the chairman of the junior selection committee, is the only one not to have played for India. The left-handed middle-order batter played 129 first-class matches with distinction, averaging 51.17.
“The Board received around 600 applications following its advertisement for the five posts issued on its official website on 18th November 2022,” a BCCI statement said. “Upon due deliberation and careful consideration, the CAC shortlisted 11 individuals for personal interviews.”
Sharma, India’s 1987 World Cup hat-trick hero, first became chairman of selectors in December 2020, replacing former India spinner Sunil Joshi. His previous stint was eventful as Virat Kohli gave up captaincy in Tests and T20s and was removed as ODI skipper. In terms of results, the Indian teams chosen by his panel did not have a particularly fruitful time.
India, who were leading 2-1 in the Test series in England in 2021 before the final game was postponed following Covid positives in the camp of the visiting side, lost the rearranged match last year at Edgbaston. They lost the Test series in South Africa 1-2 despite winning the first match to take the lead.
India, who flopped in the 2021 T20 World Cup held in the UAE and saw Kohli stepped down, were eliminated in the semi-final of the 2022 edition in Australia with eventual winners England beating them by 10 wickets. Despite Suryakumar Yadav’s explosive batting, India were criticised for their inability to bat at a tempo that T20 cricket demanded.
Though BCCI announced the recasting of a fresh selection committee, Chetan Sharma’s panel stayed on to pick the sides that featured in Bangladesh, where India won the Tests 2-0 after losing the ODI series, and the white-ball sides for the current home series versus Sri Lanka.
When applicants were invited for the post of selectors, the message from the corridors of power in BCCI was that the entire selection panel would go. But the officials had a rethink after speaking with all the stakeholders and it was more or less decided that Sharma should continue. He was then called for a T20 World Cup review and future planning meeting held in Mumbai last week along with captain Rohit Sharma and head coach Rahul Dravid.
Sharma and his new committee will now have to put things in order as far as India’s outlook in the run-up to the ODI World Cup, to be staged at home in October-November. Most of the senior players will be in contention, as of now, for the tournament.
Roping in younger talent to build the T20 side for next year’s T20 World Cup though will be a bigger challenge. The selectors too will feel the pressure as India are searching to end the drought for ICC trophies. India’s last ICC title was the 2013 Champions Trophy won in the UK.
