Rai bars Amitabh Chaudhary from convening selection meeting

Another selection meeting, another delay, and more confusion. The Indian selection panel headed by MSK Prasad was set to meet in Mumbai today to select the squad for the one-off Test match against Bangladesh at home. While the meeting was scheduled to get underway at 12 noon there were no signs of things proceeding even until as late as 4 pm. It was then revealed that Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) joint secretary Amitabh Chaudhary was barred from convening the meeting.

Chaudhary was there at the BCCI headquarters in Mumbai but Vinod Rai the new chief of the administrative committee found him ineligible to hold the meeting and thus he was stopped from convening. Eventually, on orders from Rai Rahul Johri, the BCCI CEO convened the meeting via video conferencing and things went underway.

“Amitabh Chaudhary had called a senior selection committee meeting in Delhi today to select the squad against Bangladesh. Vinod Rai and Co have immediately swung in and barred him from doing anything. The CEO is directly convening the meeting via video conference from Mumbai,” a BCCI source, who witnessed the developments was quoted by PTI on Deccan Chronicles.

The reporters waiting for the selectors to walk out and name the team were left confused when at lunch they learnt that one of the three members of the selection panel Sarandeep Singh hadn’t yet arrived for the meeting. He had no idea what was going on and walked into the office at around 4 pm.

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Despite being barred from this meeting Chaudhary will represent the BCCI at the ICC meeting in Dubai along with the new member of the administrator’s council Vikram Limaye who will learn from the former’s experience and use it in for future meetings.

Just yesterday the Supreme Court of India had appointed former CAG Vinod Rai, historian Ramchandra Guha, investment banker Vikram Limaye and former India women’s team captain Diana Edluji to look after the board until formal elections are held.