BCCI vs Supreme Court: Board likely to fire two selectors after pressure from Lodha panel

Kolkata: Under fire due to a stinging status report filed by the Supreme Court-appointed Lodha Committee, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) is likely to remove senior national selectors Gagan Khoda and Jatin Paranjpe when the members meet for Special General Meeting (SGM) this Friday. The Lodha Panel has recommended to dissolve the current BCCI regime and wants all decisions taken by BCCI post the Supreme Court verdict on 18 July, to be superseded. While there is a possibility that the entire selection committee may be overhauled, Khoda’s and Paranjpe’s ouster now looks imminent as their appointments were in direct violation of the Lodha Panel’s recommendations. [caption id=“attachment_3024908” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  File photo of BCCI president Anurag Thakur. AFP[/caption] Both Khoda (2 ODIs) and Paranjpe (4 ODIs) have never played Test cricket, which the Lodha Panel made mandatory for appointment in senior selection panel, which they also wanted to be restricted to not more than three members. While Khoda was from the earlier panel, Mumbai batsman Paranjpe was newly-inducted in the panel during the BCCI Annual General Meeting (AGM) on 21 September. The three others in the panel are MSK Prasad, Devang Gandhi and Sarandeep Singh – all Test players but with collective experience of 13 matches in longest format. “It’s unlikely that Gagan and Jatin can be kept in selection panel. In any case, I don’t think BCCI is now in a position to get into further confrontation with apex court and it’s appointed panel,” a very senior BCCI office-bearer told PTI on Wednesday. “If we remove Gagan and Jatin, it will in any case conform with panel’s guidelines of having three ex-Test players as senior selectors. “We have a long home season and you don’t want a situation where you don’t have selectors going into ODIs followed by Test series against England and Australia.” Since the SC deadline for BCCI is 6 October, the SGM scheduled on Friday in Mumbai bears a lot of significance. Since the panel had recommended in having ‘Talent Scouts’ who will help national selectors, there is a possibility that Khoda and Paranjpe could be offered ‘Scouts’ job who would be watching domestic matches.