Indian National Selectors: Roles and responsibilities

BCCI announced their new selection committee panel on Wednesday and named former Indian wicket keeper MSK Prasad as the chairman of selectors. For the very first time, the board had invited applicants for the post and took the decision during their 87th annual general meeting in Mumbai.

The selection panel for Junior team and Women’s team were also announced. Here is the full list of the members of all three selection panels.

Senior Selection Committee: MSK Prasad (Chairman), Gagan Khoda, Sarandeep Singh, Jatin Paranjpe and Devang Gandhi

Junior Selection Committee: Venkatesh Prasad (Chairman), Rakesh Parikh, Aashish Kapoor, Amit Sharma and Gyanendra Pandey

Women's Selection Committee: Hemlata Kala (Chairperson), Shashi Gupta, Anjali Pendharkar, Lopamudra Banerjee and Sudha Shah

The selection committees will be at the helm for the next two years and based on their performance there contract can be extended. The responsibilities of the selection committee includes selecting the national sides for:

International matches – Test Matches, ODI matches and T20I matches.

India 'A' teams – both for home and away series.

President's XI / BCCI XI to play visiting international teams.

All India Junior Selection Committee: Responsibilities include selection of teams for international tournaments involving:

U-19 Cricket

U-17 Cricket

U-15 Cricket

All India Women’s selection committee: Responsibilities include selections of sides for the international matches including Tests, ODIs and T20s.

The five-member selection committee are selected from five different zones and they are the only people who have the voting rights for team selection. The coach and the captain are invited in the selection committee meetings to give their opinion but they don’t have the voting rights. Kapil Dev appealed for voting rights during his tenure as an Indian coach but it didn’t really materialize.

Criticism faced by the by the selection panel over the years

The biggest criticism faced by the committee members over the years has been promoting players from their zones instead of selecting the best available team. Former Indian coach John Wright expressed his displeasure over the selection process through his book “Indian Summers” and also revealed that he was bemused with some of the selections during his tenure as a coach.

BCCI had tried addressing the issue during its Shashank Manohar led constitution review in 2006 but due lack of effort from the zonal heads to reduce the 5 member committee to a three or four member committees bustled the idea.

After the 2007 World Cup debacle in the Caribbeans, BCCI decided to discard the honorary system of selectors and started having paid selectors. The annual salary for the last selection committee headed by Sandip Patil was Rs. 60 lakhs but as Patil already got 70 lakhs annually as the director of operations at NCA, his stakes were raised.

“It was president N Srinivasan’s decision to pay him ten lakh more as he was getting paid more at the National Cricket Academy. His contract with the NCA was about to complete in October and the president felt that it would be unfair to ask Patil to work for a salary which is lesser than at his previous assignment.

“Negotiations were conducted and it was decided to pay Patil Rs 70 lakh per annum while other zonal selectors would be paid Rs 60 lakhs,” a top BCCI official told Indian Express during Patil’s appointment as a coach in 2012.

Revelations made by former chief selector

Sandeep Patil made some shocking revelations after his contract ended as an Indian selector. He revealed that they had decided to sack Mahendra Singh Dhoni ahead of the 2015 World Cup after he unexpectedly retired from Test cricket midway through the Test series in Australia.

Patil said that his retirement came as a shock to everyone but was happy that he decided to move on when he realised his mental and physical fitness were not up to Test match standards. Patil also revealed that they would have dropped Sachin Tendulkar if he had not retired himself in 2012.

"On December 12, 2012, we met Sachin and asked him about his future plans. He said he did not have retirement on his mind. But the selection committee had reached a consensus on Sachin... and had informed the board too about it.

“Perhaps Sachin understood what was coming because at the time of the next meeting, Sachin called and said he was retiring (from ODIs). If he had not announced his decision to quit then, we would have definitely dropped him," Patil made this incredible revelation.