The Supreme Court-appointed Committee of Administrators (CoA) has approached three former players — Kapil Dev, Anshuman Gaekwad and Shantha Rangaswamy — once again and appoint them as the ad-hoc panel to replace the now defunct Cricket Advisory Committee (CAC) to select the new Head Coach as well as the new five-member national selection committee.

In two separate meetings held in the last couple of months, the decision to appoint this panel with specific tasks was approved by CoA members Vinod Rai, Diana Edulji and Lt. Gen. (Retd) Ravi Thodge. The current CAC which had former India cricketers Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly and VVS Laxman is not defunct with all three of them recusing themselves due to conflict of interest issue.

CricketNext can confirm that BCCI General Manager (Cricket Operations) Saba Karim had approached Kapil, Gaekwad and Rangaswamy with the request and all three have agreed to be on the panel to select the next head coach.

“The BCCI have approached the three former cricketers and all three of them gave approval for the same. Once the deadline for application for the post, which is July 30, comes to an end, the next steps for the ad-hoc panel will be informed to them,” a senior BCCI official informed CricketNext on Wednesday (July 17).

However, according to the new BCCI constitution, the CAC or the ad-hoc panel can only pick the Head Coach while the rest of support staff which includes batting coach, bowling coach, fielding coach, trainer, physio and administrative manager has to be picked by BCCI CEO Rahul Johri.

Rule 24 (5) of the BCCI Constitution states: “CEO to appoint team officials for the Indian team which shall compulsorily include qualified coaches, managers, physiotherapists, nutritionists, trainers, analysts, counsellors and medics. However, the Head Coach of each of the National Teams shall be appointed by the Cricket Advisory Committee referred to in Rule 26 (2) A (ii).”

However, it is expected that the ad-hoc panel will make recommendations for the support staff as well in discussion with their pick for the new Head Coach.

“The decision of the ad-hoc CAC will be final when it comes to the Head Coach. The rest of the support staff they will recommend in discussion with the new candidate and the final decision will be taken by CEO Johri,” the BCCI official added.

Interestingly, the tenure of five national selectors led by MSK Prasad has also come to an end and the CoA decided that the ad-hoc panel will also be tasked with picking the new national selection panel.

“After some discussion, the COA decided that: (a) The Cricket Advisory Committee (CAC) may be requested to take on the task of appointment of selectors; and (b) In the event the CAC is not agreeable to the same, a separate ad-hoc committee may be constituted for the appointment of national selectors,” CoA minutes of the meeting for May 3, posted on the BCCI website read.

The current men’s national selection committee features former cricketers Sarandeep Singh, Devang Gandhi, Jatin Paranjpe, Gagan Khoda and chairman Prasad.

“The first task of the ad-hoc panel is to pick the head coach. Once they have got that out of the way, they will get down to picking the selection committee and the process for the same will be communicated to them later,” the official said.

It is expected that the selection meeting to pick the squad for West Indies on Friday (July 19) in Mumbai will be the last one for the current panel.