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Wadekar new selection committee chairman

Same wine, same old bottle -- that in sum is the story of the annual elections to the Board of Control for Cricket in India, which took place in Calcutta earlier today.

Raj Singh Dungarpur has been re-elected president. Jaywant Lele has been re-elected secretary. Both elections were unanimous.

As, indeed, were the re-elections of Jyoti Bajpai (joint secretary) and Kishore Rungta (treasurer).

The interesting change was that following the expiry of the term of Kishen Rungta as chairman of the national selectors, the board has elected Ajit Wadekar, the West Zone representative in the selection committee, as the next chairman.

Wadekar, you will recall, made it to the committee midway through its last term, filling the vacancy left by the death of then chairman Ramakant Desai.

The selection committee in fact sees wholesale changes, with only Wadekar and Shivlal Yadav (South Zone) coming through from the previous lot.

Ashok Malhotra comes in from the East Zone, replacing Sambaran Bannerjee (whose tenure of five years expired along with that of Rungta), former Test star and national coach Madan Lal replaces Mohinder Pandove as the North Zone selector, while Anil Deshpande replaces Rungta as the Central Zone representative on the five-member committee.

Overall, this particular committee has three men with international experience in Wadekar, Madan Lal and Ashok Malhotra -- the first two named also having been coach of the Indian team in their time. Not forgetting of course that Shivlal Yadav too has a modicum of Test experience to his name.

It bears keeping in mind that this will be the last year in office for the five-member committee -- as per the Board's initiatives, the present committee will be replaced by a three-member selection committee this time next year.

Again, all elections were unanimous.

This unanimity, which Lele stressed during the post-election press briefing, means in essence that opposition to the ruling Jagmohan Dalmiya clique, spearheaded by former BCCI president Inderjit Singh Bindra, has been effectively wiped out. It will be recalled that last year's elections were particulary heated, with Bindra and Dalmiya teeing off on each other leading to the postponement of the scheduled AGM, and to fireworks at the reconvened AGM in Chennai before Dalmiya's group nosed home.

The AGM also elected three new vice presidents. Besides Manohar Joshi (Chief Minister of Maharashtra and president of of the Mumbai Cricket Association) and Kamal Morarka (Central Zone) who have retained their positions, the AGM elected Anup Narayan Singh (East Zone, replacing Samiran Chatterjee), Dr A C Muthaiah (South Zone, in place of N Venkat Rao who resigned earlier this week) and C K Khanna (North Zone, replacing S D A Drabu).

Needless to specify, these elections too -- vide Lele -- were unanimous.

Interestingly, the BCCI voted to award Rs 100,000 each to the 14 members of the Indian team that, under Ajay Jadeja, played in the Commonwealth Games in Kuala Lumpur recently. Since the Games was not officially recognised by the ICC, the players did not qualify for the regular match fees and other emoluments payable by the board. The anouncement of this sum, thus, is by way of ex gratia payment to the 14-member squad.

Not that the tidings will be particularly welcome to the players, come to think of it. For playing the Sahara Cup series in Toronto, the 14-member squad got on an average (inclusive of match fees, logo money and sundry other payments) Rs 90,000 per match (Rs 450,000 per player for the series). As opposed to which, the team under Jadeja is slated to get Rs 100,000 in toto.

Briefing newsmen after the elections, Lele announced that the BCCI had decided to retain Anshuman Gaekwad as coach of the senior Indian team till September 1999 -- the longest tenure given to a coach after Ajit Wadekar resigned office.

Bobby Simpson will continue as consultant coach, Andrew Kokinos remains the physical instructor and Dr Ravindra Chaddha retains office as team physician.

Krishnamachari Srikkanth will remain coach of the Indian junior team till September next.

When Gaekwad was appointed late last year, following the ouster of Madan Lal, Lele had said, even while announcing the appointment, that if Gaekwad was found unsatisfactory, Srikkanth would take over as coach. The fact that Gaekwad has now been given a clear run for the next 12 months is by way of tribute to the fashion in which he turned around a team that was losing everything in sight, and coached it to four straight trophy wins before the recent debacle in the Sahara Cup.

Hemant Kanitkar (father of ODI discard Hrishikesh Kanitkar) has meanwhile been elected chairman of the junior selection committee, the other members to comprise J K Mahindra (South Zone), Sashikanth Khadkar (Central Zone), Rajinder Goel (North Zone) and Jimut Mohanty (East Zone).

Dr Kamal Kalita, Niranjan Shah and S D A Drabu have been named managers of the Indian team for the Wills Cup ICC knockout ODI tournament in Dhaka in October-November, the Champions' Trophy in Sharjah, and the tour of New Zealand, respectively.