Ganguly Attending Selection Meetings – Sourav Ganguly: Former India captain and current BCCI President Sourav Ganguly is in hot waters once again. This time Ganguly is in controvery for attending selection meetings even though it is against the BCCI’s constitution. While a current selection committee member confirmed to InsideSport that Ganguly never interfered in team selection, he said it was “intimidating”. Follow Indian Cricket LIVE Updates on InsideSport.IN
“It is what it is. You can’t complain to your boss, can you? But has he interfered in selection? No, he hasn’t. However, his mere presence is always intimidating as he is the president of the board. But can’t talk about it more,” the member of the selection committee told InsideSport on condition of anonymity.
Ganguly Attending Selection Meetings: Current Selection committee member to InsideSport, ‘he never interfered but intimidating to have him in meeting’
What exactly is the matter? It came to light through reports that Sourav Ganguly had been attending selection meetings forcefully even though he had no business being there. When InsideSport reached out to some current BCCI office-bearers, we got conflicting answers.
While one of the top officials denied the report, the other confirmed it. Later, a member of the selection committee also confirmed that Ganguly had been present at many selection meetings not just one or two.
Ganguly Attending Selection Meetings: Current Selection committee member to InsideSport, ‘he never interfered but intimidating to have him in meeting’
Why is Ganguly attending selection meetings a problem?
As per BCCI’s constitution, a President can’t have any say in the selection committee meetings. Rather, the secretary (Jay Shah) being the convenor of the committee attends the meetings.
The presence of Ganguly could be intimidating for selectors and could prevent them from doing the job even if the President doesn’t interfere directly.
It especially shows Sourav Ganguly in a bad light after the entire episode of Virat Kohli vs BCCI. Despite being one of the most successful captains, Virat Kohli was removed from ODI captaincy while playing a part in him stepping down as the Test captain. It raises a BIG question, did Ganguly play any part in Kohli’s sacking?
There have been reports that Ganguly wanted to showcase Kohli and there were talks of removing him as the Test captain after the South Africa series.
For quite some time, a BCCI official kept inviting himself to selection committee meetings even when he knew he should have stayed away.
Captain and coach were helpless. Couldn’t do anything. He had no business being there.
I hope such instances are not repeated in the future.
— KSR (@KShriniwasRao) January 26, 2022
Ganguly Attending Selection Meetings: Current Selection committee member to InsideSport, ‘he never interfered but intimidating to have him in meeting’
“He is been doing things forcefully on various accounts. This is how BCCI is being run nowadays. Ganguly doesn’t have any business to attend selection meetings. Extremely unfortunate this is,” said another BCCI official.
However, another BCCI official InsideSport spoke to said the entire episode should have been dealt with internally, saying that selectors should have spoken to Jay Shah if they felt intimidated by Ganguly’s presence.
“I haven’t been attending selection meetings, so can’t say whether Ganguly did or did not. But if the selection committee doesn’t want him present, they should have spoken to Jay Shah instead of leaking it to the media. Jay is the board secretary. Sourav would have listened to him,” the senior BCCI official told InsideSport.
Ganguly Attending Selection Meetings: Current Selection committee member to InsideSport, ‘he never interfered but intimidating to have him in meeting’
Follow Indian Cricket LIVE Updates on InsideSport.IN
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