Former left arm spinner Maninder Singh, opener Shiv Sunder Das were the two prominent names who have applied for senior national selector positions with experience playing over 20 Tests for India. It could not be confirmed whether former pacemaker Ajit Agarkar has signed up or not. According to many, Agarkar, with his international credentials, has a good chance of becoming chairman of the selection committee if he decides to apply. Salil Ankola, the current chairman of the senior Mumbai team, former goalkeeper Samir Dighe and the flamboyant Vinod Kambli are said to have signed up from Mumbai.
As the application date for the new panel closed at 6pm on Monday, it’s clear that over 50 individuals have applied, but there aren’t too many heavyweights in the fray.
Of the confirmed candidates, none have played more Tests than Maninder (35 Tests), while Das (21 Tests) is second.
However, Maninder had also applied in 2021 and despite qualifying for the interview round, he was pipped by Chetan Sharma who was the choice of the former Cricket Advisory Committee (CAC) headed by Madan Lal.
In fact, Chetan had played fewer matches compared to Maninder, but in terms of stature, both of them were almost in the same category as they were young stars in the mid to late 1980s before fading away.
“Yes, I signed up,” Maninder confirmed to PTI.
Well-known sources confirmed that Das, who is currently the batting coach of the senior Punjab team, has signed up and as East Zone produces hardly any known test players, he has a very good chance of becoming a selector.
But it has not been confirmed whether Odisha, Das’ home state, will support his candidacy.
Last time, despite being the favourite, Agarkar was not given the job because the former MCA regime had not supported him as officials wanted Abey Kuruvilla.
The other names from Zone North are lightweight former cricketers.
From the northern zone, apart from Maninder, Atul Wassan, Nikhil Chopra (Delhi), Ajay Ratra (Haryana) and Reetinder Singh Sodhi (Punjab) are former Indian players who have thrown their hats in the ring.
From East zone, except Das, other names are really lightweight. They include Prabhanjan Mullick, Rashmi Ranjan Parida from Odisha, Subhamoy Das, Saradindu Mukherjee and Sourasish Lahiri from Bengal.
Deep Dasgupta and Laxmi Ratan Shukla (current Bangladeshi coach) – two former Indian players – have decided not to apply.
From the central zone, Amay Khurasiya from Madhya Pradesh and Gyanendra Pandey from Uttar Pradesh are said to have applied.
While there are no written rules, BCCI normally believes in the convention of equal division, which is why five junior and five senior selectors came from 10 different states in recent times.
So the junior selection committee has one from Tamil Nadu (S Sharath), Bengal (Ranadeb Bose), MP (Harvinder Sodhi), Punjab (Krishan Mohan) and Gujarat (Pathik Patel).
Therefore, it is expected that candidates from these five states are likely to be disqualified.
Prominent names like L Sivaramakrishnan and WV Raman from Tamil Nadu have not applied.
However, former Hyderabad off-spinner Kanwaljeet Singh has applied for the job as a candidate for the South Zone.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by DailyExpertNews staff and is being published from a syndicated feed.)
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