BCCI inducts Debashish Mohanty into national junior selection panel

The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has inducted the former India cricketer Debashish Mohanty in the national junior selection panel. His appointment comes in the wake of Supreme Court directive passed on August 9 which made a five-member selection committee compulsory again which was cut down to three members earlier. Mohanty will now be part of the panel which oversees the selection of India U19 squad and other junior cricket grades in the country.

Interestingly, the list of the names was handed over to the Cricket Advisory Committee (CAC) which comprises of Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly and VVS Laxman. But they declined to take a call as it would’ve come under the conflict of interest clause again. Sachin’s son Arjun Tendulkar is now the part of India U19 team while Ganguly is the CAB President and Laxman is the mentor of an IPL franchise.

“We have appointed Debashish Mohanty as the fifth member of the junior selection panel. Since SC order states that it needs to be a five-member panel, we had given the names to Cricket Advisory Committee. However, Sachin (Tendulkar), Sourav (Ganguly) and VVS Laxman all declined as they had their own reasons. So among the list of names available we saw Debashish had the maximum international experience. So he has been appointed,” CoA chief Vinod Rai was quoted as saying by Indian Express.

Needed to fill up the vacancy at the earliest

The U19 Asia Cup is set to be played from September 27 and according to the rules of the Asian Cricket Council (ACC), the squads should be picked a month earlier which is the reason they needed to fill the vacancy at the earliest. “Ashish Kapoor had comeback earlier. And Amit Sharma has also made a comeback to the panel. Since one vacancy was still left after Venkatesh Prasad’s resignation, we needed to fill it up at earliest.”

“The ACC norms state that U19 Asia Cup squad has to be announced a month earlier. So we needed to get the panel ready,” Rai further said. The new selection committee will now pick the U19 squad for a quadrangular tournament in Kolkata which will begin on September 9 and for Asia Cup as well.

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