Former India all-rounder Ajit Agarkar is set to be the new chairman of the senior men's selection committee after the BCCI agreed to significantly hike his annual salary from Rs 1 crore.

The position has been lying vacant since February when Chetan Sharma resigned following a sting operation. Shiv Sundar Das has since been operating in an interim role.

Agarkar is learnt to have sent his application on Thursday after BCCI promised him that he would be adequately compensated for sacrificing his commentary commitments. He is learnt to be the only significant name among the applicants. The deadline ended on Friday.

Agarkar played 26 Tests, 191 ODIs and four T20Is and was a member of the 2007 T20 World Cup-winning side.

IPL franchise Delhi Capitals announced on Thursday that he would be released as a member of the support staff.

The other members of the selection committee, besides Das, are Subroto Banerjee, Salil Ankola and Sridharan Sharath. Each of them is paid Rs 90 lakh annually.

Several former players the BCCI contacted over the last month were reluctant to apply for the position since they felt the remuneration was much lower than their other sources of income. The BCCI even contacted Dilip Vengsarkar after having relaxed the age cap of 60 years but the former India captain wasn't willing to give up his membership of the Board's apex council.

Brathwaite to lead WI

Antigua: Red-ball specialist batter Kraigg Brathwaite will continue to lead the side as Cricket West Indies on Friday announced an 18-member squad for the preparatory camp ahead of the two-match Test series against India.

With West Indies currently playing in the World Cup qualifiers, some senior members have not been named in the squad for the camp. Among the absentees are Jason Holder, Alzarri Joseph and Kyle Mayers, while Kavem Hodge, Alick Athanaze and Jair McAllister are the new faces.

AP/PTI