Recently, the Committee of Administrators (CoA) member Diana Edulji backs Ramesh Powar and writes to the CoA chief Vinod Rai for the extension of his coaching term of the Indian women’s cricket team. However, the CoA chief has rejected that request and wishes to continue their searching for the new coach of Indian women’s cricket team.
The former Indian cricketer Ramesh Powar joined the national women’s cricket team as a head coach in August 2018 and he had a term till November 30, 2018.
Everything was going fine at the early stage before Mithali Raj’s exclusion from the playing XI during the semi-final of 2018 WWT20 hit the entire nation. While the national team lost that game against England women, Raj wrote to the BCCI demanding justice after complaining over Ramesh Powar and Diana Edulji for being biased towards her.
When Powar’s contract came to an end, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) started the process of finding the new head coach after not offering Powar for his contract extension. Later, a BCCI official revealed that Rai took the decision of Powar’s elimination arbitrarily without consulting with Diana Edulji or any of the BCCI members.
Also read: Mansi Joshi Clarifies Her Earlier Statements Regarding Ramesh Powar
Even recently, the T20I captain and vice-captain of Indian women’s cricket team, Harmanpreet Kaur and Smriti Mandhana, both wrote the emails to BCCI where they requested to bring back Powar as a head coach of the team.
Now, Edulji wrote an email where she wanted the interview process for the new head coaching role to be scrapped and backed Powar by requesting his contract extension at least for the next tour in New Zealand, starting on January 24.
Also read: CAC Says No To Interview Candidates For Women’s Coach
But Rai replied that the interview process can’t be scrapped now due to the advertisement for the job has already been issued.
A BCCI official told PTI, “Diana sent an email to Rai asking for an extension of Powar as both Harmanpreet and Mandhana asked for it. She wanted the interview process to be scrapped. However, Rai replied by saying that scrapping the process is not possible as the advertisement for the job has already been issued.”
It is expected that the Indian women’s cricket team will get their new head coach before their upcoming New Zealand tour, where they will play three-match ODI series and three-match T20I series against the hosts. While the application will be closed on December 14, former international cricketers Manoj Prabhakar, Herschelle Gibbs and Dimitri Mascarenhas have already applied for it.
