Sourav Ganguly gives clear answer on India head coach Ravi Shastri’s re-appointment issue

BCCI President-elect Sourav Ganguly might not share the best of relations with Team India head coach Ravi Shastri, but the former India skipper has said that there shouldn’t be a need for re-appointment of the head coach even though the ad-hoc Cricket Advisory Committee (CAC) formed to select the head coach back in August was served conflict notice by Ethics Officer D.K. Jain.

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“I don’t think so that it will jeopardize the selection of Shastri. I am not sure though. Even we had selected the coach when there was this conflict issue,” Ganguly pointed.

While Ganguly decided to play the question on Shastri’s future with a straight bat, he did give reporters something to laugh about when someone asked him if he has spoken to the head coach after being selected for the position of BCCI President on Sunday. “Why? What has he done now?” he smiled.

Interestingly, Committee of Administrators (CoA) chief Vinod Rai had made it clear that he wouldn’t wish to comment on whether Shastri would need to be re-appointed if the Ethics Officer finds the ad-hoc CAC guilty of conflict.

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“Firstly, it is a hypothetical question, and secondly, it is unfair on me to prejudge a decision of the Ethics Officer,” he had said.

CoA co-member Diana Edulji had said that the Ethics Officer is the final authority on the conflict of interest rules. If he finds the committee conflicted, then the process of coach appointment has to be redone.

“To be honest, I am not against any individual. But even in the case of W.V. Raman’s appointment as the women’s team coach, I had said that the BCCI constitution has no place for an ad-hoc CAC. Similarly, in Shastri’s case also, if the Ethics Officer does rule against the CAC and says there is conflict, the process will automatically have to be redone keeping the rules of the constitution in mind,” she had explained.

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But the trio of Kapil Dev, Santha Rangaswamy and Anshuman Gaekwad had resigned after being issued notices and a senior BCCI functionary had said that the matter ended with the resignations.

“Yes, it does. If you remember, the same thing happened in the (Sachin) Tendulkar episode. So, you can say it is a closed chapter,” the functionary had said.