Every cricket fan knows that the former Indian skipper, Sourav Ganguly, who will soon be becoming the president of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), doesn’t have a healthy relationship with the Indian head coach, Ravi Shastri. But the two gentlemen have made sure that their personal enmity doesn’t affect professional judgments.
Ganguly, who will soon assume office as the most powerful man in the most powerful person of the Indian cricket and he soon be taking some desperate decisions, with some valid reasons. In fact, some sections of fans have indeed gone to the length of requesting Ganguly to do the same. Yes, there are always factions and lobbies in Indian cricket.
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While addressing media in Kolkata, one of the questions revolved around Shastri, and Dada came up with a cheeky response, asking: “Why what has Ravi Shastri done now?”. By the way, the actual question was: “have you spoken to Ravi Shastri?”.
For the record, Ganguly has come to terms with Shastri as the coach of the Indian team, the actual camp with players. Terming Shastri as the right choice for the job, Ganguly had said that the BCCI did not have many choices.
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Ganguly explained, “Ravi is the right choice. They didn’t have too many choices as not many had applied (for the coach’s job)… Ravi has been doing this for five years and has now been given this responsibility for two more years. I don’t think anyone else in history has got such a long time with the team. He is the right choice, but now he has to repay the faith placed in him. He has two T20 World Cups coming up (in 2020 and 2021), and in such big tournaments, India needs to find ways to win.”
For that matter of fact, Ganguly was even asked, as reported by PTI, if Ravi Shastri’s appointment will be discussed since there were questions with regards to the validity of the Kapil Dev-led panel. And, Ganguly replied in negative.
Ganguly replied, “I don’t think so that it will jeopardize the selection of Ravi Shastri. I am not sure though. Even we had selected the coach when there was this conflict issue.”
Traditionally, the BCCI president is not a part of the selection committee meeting as secretary, now Jay Shah is the designated convenor. The selectors are meeting on October 24 in Mumbai to announce the squad for the Bangladesh home series. Expect some more new developments as Ganguly is likely to make his presence felt, then an there and now the head coach will not be present at the team selection meetings.
