With the Supreme Court appointed Committee of Administrators (CoA) along with Amicus Curiae PS Narasimha deciding on Thursday that the interim suspension of India all-rounder Hardik Pandya and opener KL Rahul be immediately removed, the national selectors decided to draft Pandya into the Indian squad that is currently playing a limited-overs series in New Zealand. Rahul has been asked to join the India ‘A’ team. But the move has not gone down well in certain quarters of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI).
“I am still trying to wrap my head around the logic of it all. First the players are suspended pending inquiry, knowing fully well that there is no Ombudsman. Then the associations’ efforts to appoint an Ombudsman is vicariously blocked. Replacements are selected and packed off to New Zealand. Then they decide to revoke the suspension when there is no provision for revoking suspensions” said a senior official.
“Then, despite the replacements being in New Zealand, the selection committee surprisingly meets again and sends one of the two players to New Zealand. What is the message that you are sending to Vijay Shankar? Is our bench strength a sham? Indian cricket administration seems to be caught in a quicksand of incompetence and the more they wriggle, the more they sink,” he added.
“The other one (Rahul) who was also part of the original squad to New Zealand is not sent to New Zealand. This is essentially the Theatre of the Absurd. When the complete squad, with replacements, was already there in New Zealand and when Virat Kohli’s absence did not merit sending a replacement a day earlier, who asked the selection committee to send Pandya and not send Rahul? Was the revocation of the suspension because of some pressure regarding Pandya? Who was the pressure from? Is it so easy to pressurize the selection committee?”
