The conflict of interest bogey refuses to go away in Indian cricket and as per the latest developments, it could well take down Ravi Shastri since his appointment as the head coach could come under the scanner. This could well be the case if the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) Ethics Officer D.K. Jain finds the Cricket Advisory Committee (CAC) comprising Kapil Dev, Anshuman Gaekwad and Shantha Rangaswamy guilty of conflict of interest.
The Ethics Officer has already sent notices to the three on Saturday and has asked them to reply by October 10 after MPCA life member Sanjeev Gupta raised the issue in which he alleged that the trio is in a conflict of interest position as per the Lodha Panel's proposal of one man, one post.
Shastri's appointment comes under the scanner
Now, if the committee is dismissed, Shastri will have to once again go through the entire process of applying for the post following which he will be reinstated in it.
"The appointment of Shastri as the head coach will obviously have to be done once again if the committee members who appointed him are found to have conflict of interest. A new committee will then have to be formed and the whole process has to be re-opened and re-done keeping the newly registered BCCI constitution in mind as the constitution now clearly says that only a CAC can appoint the head coach of the Indian team," the functionary was quoted by news agency IANS.
The functionary also explained that the same parameter would hold true for the appointment of W.V. Raman as women's team coach.
"One needs to see what Jain's verdict is in the Raman matter because in that case also, the same trio as ad-hoc CAC had appointed him as coach even as the two-member CoA was divided. Back then, it was a 1:1 verdict with Vinod Rai agreeing to the trio appointing the coach and Diana Edulji making it clear that there was no place for an ad-hoc CAC in the BCCI constitution that was reworked as per the proposals of the Lodha Panel," the functionary further added.
If these developments do hold true, it will be rather interesting to see how the BCCI reacts as the Indian team will be in the midst of a home series. The side is slated to play South Africa in a 3-match Test series following which Bangladesh will come visiting.
