There have been talks that Ravi Shastri’s appointment as the head coach of team India might be deemed invalid as the members of the Cricket Advisory Committee (CAC) who picked Shastri as the head coach now find themselves dealing with the “conflict of interest” issue. All the members of the CAC have already resigned.
But, the newly elected BCCI president Sourav Ganguly doesn’t think that the board will have to go through the procedure of coach’s appointment again.
According to Ganguly, when he, Sachin Tendulkar and VVS Laxman had picked the head coach, there was a “conflict of interest” issue with them as well, but the coaches they picked served their time. So, it’s likely that the same would happen this time around too and Shastri would continue as the head coach. Ganguly, however, also insisted that he’s “not sure”.
“I don’t think so that it will jeopardize the selection of Shastri. I am not sure though. Even we had selected the coach when there was this conflict issue.” Ganguly was quoted saying by the Hindustan Times.
Ganguly and Shastri don’t share the best of the relationships. When Ganguly was a part of the CAC and was selecting the coach a couple of years back, he was miffed about the fact that Shastri opted to appear for the interview via Skype and not in person and he was pretty vocal about it in the media.
The CAC headed by Ganguly back then picked Anil Kumble as head coach overlooking Shastri, but Kumble couldn’t gel well with the Indian skipper Virat Kohli and had to step down from his post which brought Shastri back into the picture.
It was believed that Ganguly, after becoming BCCI president, might want to review Shastri’s position, but when he was asked about that, the Prince of Kolkata laughed it off.
“What has he done now?” Ganguly chuckled when asked if he has had a chat with Shastri.
