You cannot go beyond tenures: Ganguly on selection committee

The Sourav Ganguly-led BCCI on Sunday (December 1) decided to bring several changes in the constitution of the world’s richest cricket body including no extension of tenure to be given for the selection committee.

The key decision of seeking the Supreme Court’s nod over the dilution of tenure cap of the board’s office-bearers and removing the 70-year age cap for representing the BCCI in the ICC chief executive committee meetings was taken in the 88th Annual General Meeting in Mumbai.

Meanwhile, the BCCI president also indicated that the tenures of the members of the selection committee have ended, saying “you cannot go beyond” that.

Going by the Board’s old constitution that has a provision for a maximum four-year term for the selection panel, its chairman MSK Prasad and his colleague Gagan Khoda’s terms have expired.

Prasad and Khoda were appointed in 2015, while Jatin Paranjpe, Sarandeep Singh and Devang Gandhi, who joined them in 2016, have one more year left in their respective tenures as per the old constitution.

The amended constitution, though, has a provision for a maximum five-year term.

“Tenures are finished (means) tenures are finished. They have done a good job. You cannot go beyond your tenure and all of them don’t finish, so the majority of them stay and I don’t think it should be a problem,” Ganguly said when asked about Prasad’s tenure after the BCCI’s 88th Annual General Meeting (AGM) here.

Ganguly said they cannot appoint selectors every year.

“As you must have heard, ICC now wants tournaments every year, that does not mean selectors continue forever. We will have tenure and we will (heed) to the tenure.”

Going by Ganguly’s statements, the new selectors will have five-year terms.

“There term is five years, they can stay for five years, but what we will do is that we will fix a term for selectors and appoint them.”

Asked about his opinion on the performance of the Prasad-led selection panel, the former captain said, “We are fine with it. (Just) because we are not involved that does not mean the selectors are bad, they have done a good job, the team has done well and we don’t have any problem.”

The Indian team enjoyed plenty of success during the five-man panel’s tenure with the positives far outweighing the negatives, but it often found itself at the receiving end of relentless criticism owing to their limited international careers collectively.

When asked about Mahendra Singh Dhoni’s participation in next year’s T20 World Cup in Australia, the former captain responded: “Please ask Dhoni”.

Dhoni has been out of action since India’s semifinal exit from the ODI World Cup in England in July. He was not part of the tour of the West Indies and the home series against South Africa and Bangladesh.

(With inputs from agencies)