da doce： As was widely predicted, Dilip Vengsarkar, the former Test cricketer, wasappointed chairman of the national selection committee.
Anand Vasu in Mumbai27-Sep-2006
Dilip Vengsarkar became chairman of the national selection committee © Getty Images
As was widely predicted, Dilip Vengsarkar, the former Test cricketer, wasappointed chairman of the national selection committee. The other new faceon the panel is SL Venkatapathy Raju, the former left-arm spinner, whileSanjay Jagdale, Bhupinder Singh Sr and Ranjib Biswal continue on thepanel.In a separate development Kapil Dev, the former Indian allrounder, hasbeen appointed director of the National Cricket Academy. He replaced SunilGavaskar, whose term ended with the Annual General Meeting, which was heldat the Cricket Club of India in Mumbai. The AGM of the board, normally atwo-day affair, where the main item on the agenda is the election of theprincipal office bearers of the board, ended in less than a day this time.Sharad Pawar (president), Niranjan Shah (secretary), N Srinivasan(treasurer) and MP Pandove (joint secretary) were all re-electedunopposed, and under the revised constitution will serve a term of twoyears. Professor Ratnakar Shetty, who has served as the executivesecretary in-charge, has been appointed the Administrative Head of theBCCI – for five years, which will carry him through to the 2011 World Cupwhich will be held in India – and on a full-time, paid basis.”There will be no elections next year for these posts and the selectorscan get an extension of an extra year after the completion of their twoyear term,” said Srinivasan. Of the five vice-presidents of the board,four – Lalit Modi (North), Dayanand Narvekar (South), Chirayu Amin (West)and Shashank Manohar (Central) – were re-elected, while the incumbent fromthe east zone, KP Kajariya, who did not seek re-election, was replaced byRajeev Shukla.Srinivas Venkataraghavan was appointed the director of the UmpiresDevelopment Programme. “He will have five retired Test umpires, one fromeach zone, to assist him in raising the standard of umpiring, and tofacilitate the standardisation of umpiring in India,” said Srinivasan. Atthe moment India is unrepresented in the ICC’s elite panel, and the BCCIis keen to change this.In the course of the AGM the BCCI also heard petitions from thePondicherry Cricket Association and the Cricket Association of Pondicherryseeking associate membership to the BCCI. “The members decided tounanimously regret the application for associate membership of thePondicherry Cricket Association and the Cricket Association ofPondicherry,” said Srinivasan. The BCCI constituted a committee to lookinto similar applications from other states comprising Shashank Manohar,Sanjay Jagdale, Arun Jaitley, Shivlal Yadav and Ratnakar Shetty.It was also decided that the CK Nayudu Awards function will take place onNovember 4, the same day on which an executive board meeting of the ICCtakes place in India. It was also proposed that the BCCI headquarters, inthe Mumbai Cricket Association premises at the Wankhede Stadium, would beinaugurated on the same day.In another initiative the BCCI will host a South Asian Universitiestournament, to be conducted from February 4 to 8, with university teamsfrom India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh taking part.