Ganguly oversteps crease and guidelines to take a seat in choice conferences

WHEN WRIDDHIMAN Saha expressed shock at being dropped from the Test workforce regardless of assurances from Sourav Ganguly, the Bengal wicket-keeper unwittingly drew consideration to a brand new follow that’s making a mockery of the cricket board’s governance norms: the previous India captain and current BCCI president’s unauthorised say in choice issues.

The BCCI structure bars its president from having any function in choosing the nationwide workforce with the intention to retain the independence and autonomy of the choice committee. “The President is shorn of his say in selections,” the Supreme Court-approved structure says. The solely BCCI office-bearer authorised to be current is the secretary, who acts as a convenor and not using a say in choice.

However, The Indian Express spoke to a few previous and current selectors below Ganguly’s tenure, who confirmed that he was a daily characteristic at choice conferences. A senior BCCI functionary went to the extent of claiming that Ganguly has attended each choice assembly since he took over as BCCI president in October 2019.

Raising the difficulty of propriety, two selectors mentioned Ganguly would log in for on-line choice conferences and “because of his stature and position, no one could object”. One of them revealed that they usually felt “bullied” by his presence. “It made many committee members uncomfortable and guarded in expressing their opinion,” mentioned the selector, talking on the situation of anonymity.

With Ganguly as BCCI chief, the choice committee has taken some key selections, together with the ouster of Virat Kohli as ODI skipper and captaincy for Rohit Sharma throughout codecs.

Multiple sources within the Indian board confirmed Ganguly’s presence at choice conferences. They mentioned that contemplating the previous captain’s stature — he performed 113 Tests and 311 One-day Internationals — the less-experienced selectors had been “reluctant to express their opinion”. This has undermined the ability of Indian cricket’s all-important decision-making committee, they mentioned.

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The present chairman of selectors, Chetan Sharma, has featured in 23 Tests and 65 One-day Internationals and his predecessor M S Okay Prasad in six Tests and 17 ODIs.

The mixed expertise of the present group of selectors, which additionally consists of Debashish Mohanty, Sunil Joshi and Harvinder Singh, is 43 Tests and 195 ODIs. The earlier panel had performed 9 Tests and 28 ODIs between them.

Last month, Saha spoke in regards to the message he had acquired from Ganguly after scoring a half-century towards New Zealand regardless of a neck harm.

“After scoring 61 against New Zealand at Kanpur, Dadi (Ganguly) congratulated me over WhatsApp and mentioned, ‘As long as I’m here (helming the BCCI), you would be in the team’. Such a message from the BCCI president really boosted my confidence. What I’m struggling to understand is how things have changed so fast,” Saha had informed The Sunday Express, referring to his omission from the workforce for the Sri Lanka sequence.

Ganguly’s proximity to the choice committee first got here to mild on October 24, 2019, a day after he was elected BCCI president, when the board tweeted an image with a caption: “All smiles at the Senior Selection Committee meeting earlier this afternoon as the teams for the forthcoming T20I & Test series against Bangladesh were announced.”

The picture confirmed Ganguly seated between the then chief selector, Prasad, and BCCI secretary Jay Shah, and together with the then skipper Kohli, Rohit Sharma and different selectors.

Recently, when the image began doing the rounds once more on social media, Ganguly denied the body was from a range assembly. In an interview with PTI, he mentioned: “I want to make it clear that the picture wasn’t from a selection committee meeting.”

About allegations of him influencing workforce choice, he informed the information company: “I don’t think I need to answer anybody, anything (on this) and dignify any of these baseless accusations. I am the president of the BCCI and I do the job of what the president of the BCCI should be doing. (I have played) 424 international matches for India. Not a bad idea at times to remind people about it, isn’t it?”

When The Indian Express despatched an in depth questionnaire to Ganguly on the difficulty, he didn’t reply.