The direction to pick youngsters for the Bangladesh tour has not gone down well with selectors, who see it as an infringement of their autonomy.
MUMBAI: The Board of Control for Cricket in India and its selection committee are heading for a clash. The direction issued by the board to the panel headed by Dilip Vengsarkar, asking it to pick youngsters for next month’s tour of Bangladesh, has not gone down well with the selectors, who are seeing it as an infringement of their autonomy.
“How can we drop the performers?” said one selector. “Bangladesh is no longer a minnow. After what happened to South Africa the other day, we cannot take them lightly.”
The players on the BCCI’s hit list include Sourav Ganguly, Zaheer Khan, Virender Sehwag, Harbhajan Singh, and notably, Sachin Tendulkar, who is generally deemed to be out of bounds in such matters.
Even after prompting them to pick youngsters, board officials are uncertain whether the selection committee will bow to their dictate. “The ball is in the selectors’ court,” a top BCCI official said.
BCCI treasurer N Srinivasan told a press conference on Saturday that the working committee had advised the selectors to choose youngsters for the tour of Bangladesh. The announcement was seen a departure by the board, more so since BCCI president Sharad Pawar had often maintained that there would be no interference in selection.
It is learnt that the selection committee has decided to go ahead with its preferences. “Performance will be our yardstick,” said another selector. “We will go our way. On what grounds can we drop Zaheer Khan and Sourav Ganguly? They have been quite consistent.”
Though the BCCI official did not specify whether the matter could escalate into a showdown, he said: “If they don’t oblige, selectors will have a lot of answering to do. After all, the working committee is the supreme body.”
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