Going by the 10 candidates short-listed for the job, former South African opener Kirsten has a clear edge over the likes of incumbent Ramesh Powar or former Team India's bowling coach Venkatesh Prasad.
Gary Kirsten, the hero of Team India's 2011 World Cup triumph, now wants to do the same with Indian women's team. But to do so, he is left with no time to resign — less than 24 hours, to be precise — from his lucrative Royal Challengers Bangalore's chief coach and mentor's post.
As the ad-hoc committee of the BCCI comprising of former India captain Kapil Dev, Anshuman Gaekwad and Shantha Rangaswamy sits down in Mumbai on Thursday to pick the coach of the national women's team, the swords are drawn between the two groups within the BCCI — COA Vinod Rai and CEO Rahul Johri vs COA Diana Edulji.
Going by the 10 candidates short-listed for the job, former South African opener Kirsten has a clear edge over the likes of incumbent Ramesh Powar or former Team India's bowling coach Venkatesh Prasad.
The others in the race are Herschelle Gibbs, former Irish cricketer Trent Johnston, former Australia spinner Brad Hogg, former England all-rounder Dimitri Mascarenhas. While among Indians, former India players WV Raman and Manoj Prabhakar have also been shortlisted alongside woman cricketer Arati Vaidya.
However, it is Kirsten's name in the shortlist that has raised a few eyebrows. Having been in charge of Team India that went on to become No. 1 side in the world, the South African apparently applied only last week on behest of the group opposed to Edulji, which wants Powar to come back as full-time coach.
But the other camp is said to have wanted some big name to defeat Edulji and that's how Kirsten came into picture late.
All eyes will be on Kirsten on Thursday when he reaches BCCI headquarters.
"If he resigns from his IPL position, we have no issues because he has more credentials than anyone else. But if he doesn't, then he should not be entertained by the committee," a senior BCCI functionary told DNA.
Conflict of interest
Going by the Rule 38 of the new BCCI constitution, approved by Supreme Court orders, Kirsten is ineligible on two accounts:
(1) A Conflict of Interest may take any of the following forms as far as any individual associated with the BCCI is concerned.
(2) Roles compromised: When the individual holds two separate or distinct posts or positions under the BCCI, a Member, the IPL or the Franchise, the functions of which would require the one to be beholden to the other, or in opposition thereof. For example: "If an individual is the coach of a team, or a coach of any IPL franchise. He or she is hit by 'Conflict of Interest'."
With this rule, the South African is disqualified as has been named coach and mentor of RCB in August 2018.
Even as per the old constitution's conflict of interest guidelines put up on BCCI website on November 21, 2015, Kirsten cannot be made coach.
"Cricketers appointed as Coaches of Indian Teams or National Selectors shall not be associated with any private coaching academies during their tenure," stated the old rulebook. And Kirsten is directly affected as he also runs an academy back in South Africa.
However, BCCI group in favour of Kirsten have their own reasons to believe that Kirsten is not violating any rules since he is associated with RCB as a coach and his position there doesn't influence the women's team in any manner. It remains to be seen if anybody would buy this argument.
Powar-play
Kirsten apart, all eyes will be on Powar post the controversy that broke during India's World T20 campaign last month.
Team's most experienced player Mithali Raj accused Powar of bias in her selection after she was dropped for matches against Australia and England, the issue also divided the two Supreme Court-appointed COAs.
Mithali later accused COA member Edulji of bias. Though Powar hit back with his own claims in a report, he has been backed by T20 captain Harmanpreet Kaur and Smriti Mandhana, both of whom have sought continuation of Powar as the coach citing team's unbeaten streak before that one defeat in World Cup.
It was only after COA chief Rai, used his "veto" power, to form an ad-hoc panel to pick the coach in the absence of Cricket Advisory Committee (CIC).
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 "Gary Kirsten, Ramesh Powar")
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