The National selectors had to wait more than six hours to get the green signal from the Committee of Administrators (COA), appointed by the Supreme Court, before picking the Indian team for the Test against Bangladesh.
Abhinav Mukund returns to the Test squad after five years, while the selectors chose a 16-member squad with an eye on grooming Hardik Pandya as an all-rounder. Abhinav sealed his spot by scoring heavily in the domestic circuit. Wriddhiman Saha replaces Parthiv Patel as the first choice wicketkeeper-batsman.
There was drama ahead of the meeting as Amitabh Chaudhary, the Board’s joint-secretary, was declared ineligible to convene it.
Even as the Board’s General Manager (Cricket Operations) M.V. Sridhar was ready to set the ball rolling, he was stopped in his tracks by a message from the COA which wanted the Board’s CEO, Rahul Johri, to convene the meeting through a video conference from Mumbai.
It is learnt that even as Johri sought guidance, a COA member said that the meeting did not need its intervention.
The apex court, had in its ruling, stated that, “Vinod Rai shall be the chairman of the Committee of Administrators. The CEO of the BCCI shall report to the COA, and the Administrators shall supervise the management of the BCCI.”
The squads:
For Test against Bangladesh: Virat Kohli (capt.), Murali Vijay, K.L. Rahul, Cheteshwar Pujara, Ajinkya Rahane, Karun Nair, Wriddhiman Saha (wk), R. Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja, Jayant Yadav, Umesh Yadav, Ishant Sharma, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Amit Mishra, Abhinav Mukund and Hardik Pandya.
India-A team for three-day practice game against Australia: Hardik Pandya (capt.), Akhil Herwadkar, Priyank Panchal, Shreyas Iyer, Ankit Bawne, Rishabh Pant, Ishan Kishan (wk), Shahbaz Nadeem, K. Gowtham, Kuldeep Yadav, Navdeep Saini, Ashoke Dinda, Mohammed Siraj, Rahul Singh and B. Indrajith .
