All the members of CAC were in favour of Kumble: BCCI secretary Ajay Shirke
Jun 30, 2016 at 3:33 PM
There were lot of controversies doing the round after Anil Kumble was appointed Team India’s head coach ahead of Ravi Shastri. Shastri was the favourite to bag the post after a very successful stint with Team India as its director. Under him the team reached new heights. Under Shastri, who had taken over as team director in August 2014, India made it to semi-finals of successive global events – the 2015 World Cup and the 2016 World T20, and also climbed to No. 1 in the Test rankings. In this period, India also won their first limited-overs bilateral series in Australia, whitewashing the hosts 3-0 in a T20 series.
However, putting all those rumors to bed, BCCI secretary Ajay Shirke emphasised on Wednesday that Kumble’s choice was “unanimous.” All the four members of the Cricket Advisory Committee (CAC) that included former cricketers like Sourav Ganguly, Sachin Tendulkar, VVS Laxman and former secretary Sanjay Jagdale were in favor of Kumble.
Speaking to the Times of India, Shirke said, “All the four members of our Cricket Advisory Committee (CAC) -Sourav Ganguly , Sachin Tendulkar, VVS Laxman and former BCCI secretary Sanjay Jagdale – were in favour of Kumble becoming the head coach. So, Ganguly missing the interview, for which he had taken permission, didn’t make any difference.”
The statement effectively ends any chances of foulplay in the coach selection.
Recently reports emerged that Kumble’s selection was done by a former cricketer, who was part of the Cricket Advisory Committee (CAC) and more so is a major stakeholder in the former India skipper’s company.
The revelations raised serious questions on the selection of Kumble and Laxman’s role in the rejection of other candidates who had applied to be Team India’s coach. However, Shirke said that Laxman’s conflict of interest was cleared ahead of Kumble’s selection as head coach.
Shirke further added, “We were concerned about rumours that Laxman was an employee of Tenvic, a player management firm run by Kumble. Laxman gave an undertaking that he was no more a director in Tenvic nor was he a shareholder.”