Sandeep Patil questions credentials of BCCI's Cricket Advisory Committee

Former Indian batsman and selector Sandeep Patil has said that the BCCI’s Cricket Advisory Committee (CAC) doesn’t have credentials to pick the Indian coach. CAC has selected Ravi Shastri as the head coach of the Indian team but Patil doesn’t think they are the right people for picking the coach. He pointed out to the fact that none of the members of CAC have coached in their career.

Questions the procedure

CAC comprises of legendary cricketers like Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly, and VVS Laxman. While all these players had great careers, none of them has coaching experience.

In an interview to Mid-Day, Sandeep Patil said: “Sachin, Sourav, and Laxman are absolute legends as players and have done great things for the country, but none of them have coached a team. Do coaches pick umpires and vice-versa?”

He also expressed surprised as the BCCI didn’t announce the coach on Monday itself when the CAC met. He further added that the board is playing it safe because of Lodha Committee recommendations.

Sandeep Patil backed Ravi Shastri for the job

Patil admitted that Shastri deserved the job but said to be successful he would have to take some tough calls. “When you are given a job, you must do it fearlessly. It’s not about winning popularity polls. I am proud that as chief selector, my colleagues and I took some very tough and unpopular decisions for which we attracted a lot of criticism. But we did something that made Indian cricket better,” said Patil.

He further added that Shastri would have better in a team director’s role rather than head coach. “I have known Ravi for a very long time. He was my room partner during my playing days, he was chairman of the National Cricket Academy (NCA) when I was NCA Director and he was Team Director when I was India’s chief selector, but he’s not exactly a coach.”

He pointed to Gautam Gambhir‘s statement last year in which Gambhir said ‘Ask Ravi Shastri how many throw-downs he did in the last 18 months.’