Venkata Krishna By

Express News Service

CHENNAI : With contracts of the Indian support staff other than head coach Ravi Shastri up for review, Committee of Administrators (CoA) is likely to entrust Cricket Advisory Committee (CAC) with the right to take a call.But the catch here is that with Sourav Ganguly, Sachin Tendulkar and VVS Laxman no more a part of the panel, it remains to be seen who will be the men in charge of finalising their contract extensions.

When the CAC appointed Shastri as the India head coach in 2017, he was given a two-year contract till the end of 2019 World Cup. But the rest of the support staff — Sanjay Bangar, Bharathi Arun and R Sridhar — who were subsequently given renewed contracts, received only a one-year extension. Their contracts are up for renewal after the England tour, and with the team heading to UAE for Asia Cup, CAC is likely to review its position only after the continental tournament concludes.

CAC has since been disbanded because of conflict of interest. More recently, when the strength of selectors was increased to five as per Supreme Court guidelines, CoA didn’t need to seek the panel’s guidance as they brought back Jatin Paranjape and Gagan Khoda. The duo had been removed from the selection committee as per the earlier directions of the apex court.

But with CoA not inclined to take decisions with regards to cricketing matters, it remains to be seen if a new-look CAC will be formed. As per the new constitution of BCCI, Cricket Committee — appointed during the annual general meeting — will have the powers to appoint coaching staff. With an AGM unlikely to happen anytime soon, it remains to be seen how CoA goes about with this. Though there is always the possibility of an interim panel being formed, it is unclear at the moment whether such a thought is being mooted.

Sources close to the CoA indicated that the review of contracts will be done only by CAC, but they were not clear as to who would be a part of the panel. They have also not ruled out the possibility of General Manager Saba Karim (cricket operations) and CEO Rahul Johri deciding the fate of the trio.

In 2017, CAC, while appointing Shastri as head coach, had named Rahul Dravid and Zaheer Khan as batting and bowling consultants, respectively. However, with CAC’s jurisdiction limiting their role to just the appointment of the head coach, CoA eventually adhered to Shastri’s request and gave a one-year contract to the rest of the support staff, with the option of extending it to another year after review.Meanwhile, with regards to team manager Sunil Subramaniam’s contract extension, the CoA have given Shastri the power to decide.

venkatakrishna@newindianexpress.com