The Committee of Administrators (CoA) and BCCI have made it amply clear that the inclusion of Rahul Dravid and Zaheer Khan in the coaching set for the senior men’s national team was done by the Cricket Advisory Committee, after consulting the newly-appointed coach Ravi Shastri.
In a press release issued by the cricket board on Thursday evening, the BCCI stated that Shastri was chosen on the merit of his presentation and interview. The statement was not signed by Vinod Rai or the BCCI acting secretary, but reportedly collated on the instructions of the former.
"Ravi Shastri was recommended on the merit of his presentation and the vision that he projected. After taking the decision on his selection, the CAC consulted him and decided on having batting and bowling consultants on overseas tour-to-tour basis, as per the requirement of the team," the statement noted.
The clarification comes after speculation arose on the "surprise" addition of Dravid and Khan as overseas batting and bowling consultants respectively. A report even stated that the CoA was going to investigate the appointments. This reportedly angered Rai, his CoA colleagues, the CAC's Sourav Ganguly, Sachin Tendulkar and V.V.S. Laxman.
Expressing gratitude to the CAC for completing its job with utmost integrity, BCCI stated, “The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) expresses its sincere gratitude to the members of the Cricket Advisory Committee (CAC), who most willingly agreed to undertake the process of selection of the head coach of the Indian cricket team.The three members of the committee—Sourav Ganguly, Sachin Tendulkar and VVS Laxman—executed the assigned task with total transparency, professionalism and commitment to Indian cricket."
The statement ended by noting that all efforts of the three cricketing greats were pro bono and they had no vested interests.
It must be pointed out that one acting office-bearer, on Wednesday, exceeded his brief by sending a press release on behalf of the BCCI. The release was worded poorly, rambled and used language deemed inappropriate for official communication. Sources told THE WEEK that the release was not issued by the media communications department of BCCI in Mumbai.
