Sweeping changes have been made to the State senior selection panel. Importantly, S. Sharath will replace B. Kalyanasundaram as the chief selector.
S. Madhavan, Jaffer Sharief and S. Suresh have also been dropped from the panel. W.V. Raman retains his post as coach and M. Sanjay will continue to be his deputy.
Former off-spinning all-rounder B. Ramprakash, and former off-spinners R. Venkatesh and P. Subbiah (he hails from Madurai) will assist Sharath. All have played first-class cricket.
The 41-year-old Sharath is an accomplished domestic cricketer. In 139 first-class games, he has 8700 runs at 51.17 with 27 hundreds.
Former State paceman Kalyanasundaram leaves after five years in the top job. Tamil Nadu made it to the Ranji final, in 2011-12, during his tenure.
However, the State side’s performances have been dismal over the last two years in the Ranji Trophy. On both these occasions, it failed to qualify for the knockout stages.
In fact, Tamil Nadu did not make the knockout phase in any of the three formats last season.
