BCCI to announce Venkatesh Prasad's replacement soon

The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) will soon announce the replacement of Venkatesh Prasad who resigned as the chief of the U19 selection panel last week. The committee led by him had picked the team which won the U19 World Cup in January in New Zealand under the coaching of the former Indian cricketer Rahul Dravid. However, he stepped down from the post soon after as no one credited the selection committee for the same and also wasn’t rewarded like the board did for the players and support staff.

Soon, Prasad signed a contract with Indian Premier League (IPL) franchise Kings XI Punjab as the bowling coach of the team. So there might be a possibility that he might have resigned from the position to avoid the ‘Conflict of Interest’ issues. Though anything is not clear regarding his resignation and the Indian board is finding his replacement as of now.

Who will replace him?

There are speculations that the former India off-spinner Ashish Kapoor, along with Punjab batsman Amit Sharma are the leading candidates for the post. Interestingly, both were part of the five-member junior selection panel before which was cut down to three as per Lodha Committee recommendations. The acting president of BCCI CK Khanna cleared that the post will be filled by the end of this week.

“Venkatesh Prasad resigned last week only. I have started discussing about the post with my colleagues and with the other BCCI members as well. We are considering some names. Amit and Ashish are also under consideration. We will shortly fill up the vacancy under the rules and regulations of the BCCI. I hope by the end of this week it should be done,” he told ANI.

Former Uttar Pradesh cricketer Gyanendra Pandey and former Baroda batsman Rakesh Parikh are the other two members of the junior selection panel.

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