MUMBAI: A little less than three months after the Committee of Administrators (CoA) took a call that former India cricketer and selector
Vikram Rathour cannot be appointed as batting coach for the junior national teams because of conflict of interest, the latter is all set to be appointed as head coach for
India A
's home series against
Sri Lanka
starting later this month.
With Plan A not working, the
BCCI's operations team appears to have switched to Plan B to bring Rathour back into the system despite CoA head Vinod Rai telling TOI on record in the recent past that "if Rathour is conflicted, there is no way he can be appointed".
Rathour is a relative of Under-19 selector Ashish Kapoor and is also a cousin of former BCCI president Anurag Thakur.
"In case of Kapoor, it's a clear case of conflict. In Thakur's case, there's no harm in being related but then, COA can't have apples and oranges policy when it comes to pointing or ignoring conflict cases," sources said.
Relations aside, Rathour is also the director of coaching at the Himachal Pradesh
Cricket
Association and the coach of Himachal's senior Ranji team.
"If he was conflicted then, then he's conflicted now. And if he wasn't conflicted then, then what was the ruckus all about?" say sources.
There are those in the board who want the Supreme Court-appointed ethics officer/ombudsman to take the call on Rathour's appointment first.
"Tractable, intractable, whatever that term is – let the ombudsman take the call. The last time, it was being presented as if Rahul Dravid wanted Rathour on board. This time, some other route is being taken. So, basically, people will find some way or the other to trespass conflict, is it?" sources add.
The last time, it was BCCI's operations head Saba Karim who had approached Dravid with Rathour's candidature for the batting coach at the National Cricket Academy (NCA) after the exit of WV Raman.
"Why would you need someone as batting coach when you have Dravid?," Rai had told TOI then.
Start a Conversation
Post comment