The Cricket Advisory Committee is under a great deal of scrutiny after not retaining WV Raman as coach of the Indian women’s team despite the side making decent progress during his tenure.
Raman, former India and Tamil Nadu batsman, came in during a tumultuous period in 2018 when the women’s team set up was hurting from the controversy involving batting great Mithali Raj and the then coach Ramesh Powar.
Raman then oversaw India’s campaign at the T20 World Cup in Australia last year where Harmanpreet Kaur and company reached the final of the competition.
On Thursday, the CAC removed Raman in favour of Powar’s after two years despite the former reapplying for the job and appearing in interviews for the same.
The committee is now facing question marks over the call, which raised the eyebrows of many Indian fans and experts, given that Raman had done commendable work with the team. A senior member within the setup even put Lal under scrutiny, asking how he is eligible to take part in the committee since he is over 70 years old. The committee also features Sulakshana Naik and RP Singh.
“Maddi paaji celebrated his 70th birthday on March 20, 2021. The BCCI, in its appeal to the Supreme Court against some of the reforms, doesn’t ask for a roll-back of age-cap of 70 years. So how come Madan Lal was allowed to sit in a CAC meeting?”
the senior member said as quoted by NDTV.
Further, another source close to the development accused Sulakshana of bias, mentioning in a claim that she had already made up her mind that Powar should be reinstated as a coach.
“One surprising question that Raman was asked was how can he claim credit for women’s team reaching T20 final as this is a team that was prepared by Ramesh Powar,”
“Even if we presume that Ramesh and Mithali Raj had problems back then and it wasn’t good enough ground to remove Ramesh, do two wrongs make a right. If you go by the argument Sulakshana gave during Raman’s 45-minute presentation, by that logic, Ramesh is inheriting a team that Raman prepared.”
the source said.
Speculations are rife that Raman’s ouster from the women’s team could’ve been triggered by his fall-out with Neetu David while selecting the squad for the home series against South Africa.
It is understood that the two individuals had major disagreements regarding some of the choices, including Shafali Verma, who didn’t make the ODI squad against Proteas and also the controversial axing of pacer Shikha Pandey.
Raman was in favour of Shafali’s ODI team inclusion and keeping Pandey in the squad for the entire limited-overs series. The selection panel instead went in with leg-spinner C Prathyusha and left-arm seamer Monica Patel. India lost the ODI series 4-1 and suffered a 2-1 defeat in T20Is.
Raman, however, personally accepted the CAC’s call with incredible grace and respect and even wished Powar well as the team embarks on a difficult tour of England this summer.
