The Mumbai Cricket Association’s (MCA) committee of administrators’ Justice Hemant Gokhale and Justice VM Kanade took a first step towards implementing the Lodha panel reforms where the ‘one man-one post’ recommendation claimed its first victim in MCA. On Friday evening, former India fast bowler Ajit Agarkar has been asked to pick between Chief of Cricket Improvement Committee (CIC) and chairman of the senior selection committee.
Since a decade, MCA is running the CIC which comprises of former cricketers and officials of the MCA who takes the cricketing decisions. The CIC looks after appointments of coaches, trainers, physio and selectors at various age groups. Agarkar has been playing both the roles in past one year.
The MCA COA had invited the CIC to look into appointments of various coaches across Ranji Trophy and various age groups. However, before the start of the scheduled meeting, COA informed Agarkar that as per the Supreme Court order, he can’t play both the role simultaneously.
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As per the sources of the Indian Express, Ajit has decided to continue as chairman of the selection committee and gave up the CIC’s post. The CIC is now left with two members, former India skipper Ajit Wadekar and former Mumbai captain Amol Muzumdar. Wadekar, though he’s been in CIC for a decent amount of time now, has not attended any of its meetings till date.
Some of the reports have also suggested that former cricketers have said no for CIC’s post, and MCA which has a large number of Test players in their backyard is struggling to find a reputed name. One more reason has been that many former cricketers have a cricket academy running in Mumbai, and their inclusion could lead to the conflict of interest. It is understood that the MCA COA wants Wadekar to be chairman of CIC, although he is yet to attend his first meeting of the committee.
The MCA after direction from COA and CIC will invite applications for Mumbai’s Ranji Trophy coach. The CIC which is expected to come back in its full force in coming weeks will have the requirement for the new coach.
