New Delhi: The Committee of Administrators (CoA) chief Vinod Rai played down Tuesday the recent trend of senior players influencing the future of coaches in Indian cricket and said ‘there was nothing new in it’.
Indian women’s cricket team coach Tushar Arothe’s stint ended last week after his position became untenable due to alleged differences with some of the senior players, including T20 skipper Harmanpreet Kaur, who had protested against his training methods.
This is the second time during the CoA tenure that a national coach has stepped down after players’ revolt. Last year, men’s team head coach Anil Kumble resigned after his much-publicised differences with captain Virat Kohli.
“This has been going since the time of Greg Chappell and Sourav Ganguly. This is nothing new,” Rai told this agency after a CoA meeting here Tuesday.
Both Kumble and Arothe did a good job but could not continue because a few influential players wanted their ouster. Even as Kumble has chosen to stay silent on his controversial ouster, Arothe blasted the senior women players’ attitude.
Both Rai and Edulji confirmed Tuesday that former India off-spinner Ramesh Powar has taken over on an interim basis and a permanent coach will be appointed after the July 20 application deadline.
BCCI office-bearers and technical committee chairman Sourav Ganguly will meet July 22 in Kolkata to discuss the board’s stance on its cricketers being dope-tested. The BCCI has so far refused to come under the purview of the National Anti Doping Agency (NADA) and tests its cricketers through a private agency.
However, a meeting has finally been organised between the World Anti-Doping Agency and ICC to put additional pressure to make BCCI NADA compliant.
Another issue up for discussion in the meeting will be the participation of outstation domestic players in state leagues like the Tamil Nadu Premier League. The Supreme Court recently allowed the TNPL to go ahead minus the 16 outstation players who were to take part in the league.
“We will consider allowing outstation players in various state leagues based on their IPL experience. If they are not regulars in the IPL, it makes sense for them to go ahead and play in state leagues,” said a BCCI official.
