The Mumbai Cricket Association has been under serious talks from the day it has thought of introducing changes to its selection committee and coaches across all ages in Mumbai Cricket.
One of the issues is veteran players, Sunil Gavaskar and Dilip Vengsarkar has given their consent to remove Mumbai chief selector Milind Rege and coach Chandrakant Pandit despite the team having reached the Ranji final twice in succession in the past two seasons. Other issues to haunt now.
The decision to appoint the new selectors was taken on May 26 when most of the selection tournaments were almost completed. While most from the previous bunch of selectors were attending these matches, the newly appointed ones in their places have naturally not followed these games. It remains to be seen, therefore, on what basis will they pick the probable for the forthcoming season.
“It will be challenging, but we expect our new selectors to do a good job. We’ve kept a meeting between old and new selectors, along with the CIC members, on around June 18, where the old guard will provide feedback to the new set-up. In addition to that, the new selectors will be provided detailed statistics of all the top performers in the recently-held selection tournaments,” a MCA official told TOI.
Jatin Paranjpe (member of a senior selection committee), Raju Sutar (promoted from Mumbai U-16 to U-19 panel) and Santosh Shinde (member, U-19 selection committee) have been retained. On other the hand, CIC removed the selectors of the Mumbai Under-14 team, which won the West Zone title last year but retained the coach, Sandesh Kawle.
“When we saw the chart, we observed that the same set of people were the selectors at one level or another for the last seven to eight years. Those who’ve been retained are people who’ve just joined the selection panel,” justified a MCA official.
Many of the newly-appointed selectors and coaches may find it tough to even accept their role or watch local matches because they’re employed by PSUs.
So that is one of the major concerns.
“A couple of coaches have expressed to us their difficulty in this regard. But then they’re ready to quit their jobs. To watch local cricket or travel with the team, they don’t need to take a leave for a long period,” explained an official.
Along with this, Mumbai U-19 coach Satish Samant is in charge of Sanjeevani Cricket Academy in Bandra, which is a reason for some of the conflicts.
BCCI ombudsman AP Shah had pulled up the MCA last year on a similar complaint against former India stumper Chandrakant Pandit and U-14 chief selector Nilesh Bhosle.