Salil Ankola is set to be replaced in the national selection committee after the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) on Monday invited applications for the post of a national selector.
Both Ankola and chairman of selection committee Ajit Agarkar are from West
Zone (Mumbai) and it was expected that Ankola would have to go. North Zone is unrepresented in the five-member panel since the resignation of Chetan Sharma in February 2023 due to a sting operation. Agarkar took over as chairman in July last.
While the BCCI constitution, following the recommendations of the Justice (retd) RM Lodha committee, does not make it mandatory for the selectors to be from five different zones, the BCCI has always followed it for operational reasons.
Shiv Sundar Das, Subroto Banerjee and S. Sharath are the other members in the committee.
Ankola was appointed as the national selector in January 2023. Before that he had been Mumbai’s chief selector.
There had been enormous pressure from the North Zone associations over the past few months to have a selector of their own and the BCCI finally decided to bow to their wishes.
According to the notice, aspiring candidates must have played seven Tests or 30 first-class games or has participated in 10 ODIs and 20 first-class matches. An essential requirement is that the former player should have retired from the game for at least five years.
“No person who has been a member of any Cricket Committee (as defined in the rules and regulations of BCCI) for a total of 5 years shall be eligible to be a member of men’s selection committee,” the eligibility clause states.
The deadline for application is January 25.
There had been talk in several quarters for the past few months that the BCCI would go for an overhaul of the existing panel. But the plan was apparently shelved following Team India’s impressive performance in the ODI World Cup.
The revamped committee will be entrusted with the job of picking the squad for the remaining three Tests versus England besides the T20 World Cup in June.
