BCCI ponders over the prospect of doing away with coach interviews

Controversy erupted last year as previous Indian team director, Ravi Shastri and a member of the Cricket Advisory Committee (CAC), Sourav Ganguly were involved in a bitter spat as Shastri attended his coach interview via teleconferencing. In order to avoid this, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) is pondering over the prospect of abandoning the interview process for the appointment of coach. Reportedly, it’s being left to the CAC members – Sachin Tendulkar, VVS Laxman and Ganguly -to make the final call on how to appoint the new coach.

The position of the Indian head coach has been up for grabs since the former coach, Anil Kumble quit his job last month. Much speculation was made about Kumble stepping down due to issues with the Indian captain, Virat Kohli and other senior team members. As an aftermath of this “untenable” relationship, several candidates have applied for the position. Sources have further revealed that the move to scrap the interview process is being discussed within the board.

Candidates are yet to informed of the procedure

However, the process of appointment is yet to be conveyed to the candidates. The likes of Virender Sehwag, Ravi Shastri, Richard Pybus, Tom Moody, Lalchand Rajput and Doda Ganesh have applied for the position. The deadline for application was declared to be July 9 (till midnight) and CAC member, Ganguly had previously said in a public statement that the selection process would be handled on July 10 in Mumbai.

Those who have applied for the job have reportedly readied their presentations for the interview and are still waiting to hear from the BCCI. “No one has told those applicants on how to go about with this,” TOI quoted a source and confirmed that none of the applicants had heard from the governing body till Saturday evening.

Board keen to keep decision in the hands of the CAC

“The board members are keen that the Ganguly-Shastri spat shouldn’t be repeated. The final call will be taken very soon,” a top BCCI official was further quoted in the report. Since the CAC members have gone through the applications with a fine-tooth comb and are already aware of the candidate credentials, summoning them separately for a face-to-face interview isn’t absolutely necessary. Instead, the CAC members could among themselves decide their choice and recommend it to the Supreme Court appointed Committee of Administrators (CoA).

There is an additional confusion over who is going to take the final call on the head coach- the COA or the BCCI? Hopefully, we’ll have all the answers soon enough.