Former Indian cricketer Shiv Sunder Das was one of the contenders for the national selectors’ posts. He had a chance to be in the selection panel wich is led by former Indian wicketkeeper MSK Prasad.
It was only when the Indian board’s top brass were informed that Das hadn’t completed five years since officially retiring from all formats of the game that they decided to replace him with another former Indian opener Devang Gandhi.
It was also learned that BCCI skilled an embarrassing situation as they invited all candidates for the selectors’ job and BCCI clearly mentioned that the criteria will be to retire on record, from all forms of cricket at least 5 years ago.
The 38-year-old Das played his last first class in December 2012- a Ranji Trophy encounter between Vidarbha and Delhi –with the match actually concluded on January 1, 2013.
The right-handed batsman from Odisha played majority part of his career for his home state, finished his career with Vidarbha as a professional player officially calling it a day.
That meant that Das completed three and a half years since his retirement and not eligible for the job.
“He (Das) was our first choice but we later realized that he wasn’t fulfilling that particular criterion. Probably he misunderstood the criteria and thought the board would consider his name based on the fact that his last international game for India came more than 10 years ago. So almost at the last minute, we had to make a change and bring in Devang Gandhi,” a source in the BCCI told this paper.
Das played 23 Tests and 4 ODIs for IndiaThe last ODI he played in 2002. He wasn’t the only cricketer from his vintage or even further back to have applied for the coveted job.
Among the notable names who’s application were rejected are Nayan Mongia, Dodda Ganesh, Abhay Kuruvilla, Nilesh Kulkarni, Maninder Singh and Vijay Bhardwaj had also applied for the post. However, it was Gandhi, Jatin Paranjape and Sarandeep Singh who got the nod from BCCI.
Former new ball bowler Venkatesh Prasad selected as a junior selection committee chairman. There were eyebrows raised whether Venkatesh was not selected as National team selector as he has alone played more matches than the total experience of the national selection committee selectors.
“We have only filled up the selectors’ vacancies as they were created. So two selectors had completed their term of four years, the maximum which has been granted to anybody so we have filled it up and the senior-most person (MSK Prasad) has been elevated to the chairman’s position,” he had said post the conclusion of the AGM on Wednesday.