More than a week after its new president Anurag Thakur announced the Board of Control for Cricket in India’s (BCCI’s) intent of inviting applications for India’s coaching staff, including head coach, the BCCI is yet to post the advertisement as promised.
Thakur, minutes after taking over the charge on May 22, had announced that the BCCI will advertise for the posts of head coach and assistant coaches on its “website by today evening”. However, the BCCI website still hasn’t published the same.
The Hindu understands that the BCCI hierarchy is still working on the eligibility criteria to be set for the posts, and hence the delay.
Secretary Ajay Shirke worked on the criteria draft along with a couple of key executives in the BCCI. Shirke is also understood to have discussed the draft with Thakur during their meeting in Bangalore on Sunday, on the sidelines of the Indian Premier League final.
Issue of qualified coachesThe BCCI top brass is understood to be pondering over whether to specify that candidates should be qualified coaches. If the qualified coaches is added to the criteria, many of the recently-retired Test cricketers may become ineligible. Two of India’s last three coaches, Gary Kirsten and Ravi Shastri (who worked as team director for 18 months), are not certified coaches but both have had highly successful stints with the Indian team.
Besides, the BCCI dispensation has been taking its time in order to ensure that there are no legal glitches in the advertisement once it’s posted. In the past, there have been cases of the BCCI not adhering to the criteria it has spelt out while appointing coaches.
For instance, while seeking applications for the posts of bowling and batting coaches at the National Cricket Academy, the BCCI had specified the candidate should not be older than 58 years.
However, the NCA Board later offered the post to T.A. Sekar, the former India pace bowler, who was three months shy of 60 then. Moreover, Sekar, who refused to join after initially accepting the offer, had not even applied for the post.
A BCCI official revealed that the advertisement would be published in the next couple of days. That may result in the BCCI extending the date of application from the earlier announced June 10 by a week or so.
It may still give the BCCI enough time to finalise the new coach before the Indian team embarks on the tour to West Indies mid-July.
