BCCI reverts to its ‘Old is Gold’ policy by restraining Vengsarkar

Nov 15: BCCI seeks clarification from Vengsarkar over his column (Update-1)

The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) in its latest outbreak sought an explanation from the Chairman of the Selection Committee, Dilip Vengsarkar, from expressing his views to the media by writing columns in the newspaper.

The BCCI had clearly told Vengsarkar few days back, to not to continue with his syndicated columns, but he seems to have given a passing shot to the gag.

Vengsarkar has been found writing a column ‘Cover Drive’ in the Marathi daily Sakal, owned by the brother of BCCI President, Sharad Pawar.

The latest of his column appeared on Thursday.

BCCI Secretary, Niranjan Shah, confirmed that Vengsarkar has been asked not to write columns and it is brought to our notice that he’s still writing his column then we will look into it.

BCCI’s GAG

Earlier the Board reverted back to its ‘Old is Gold’ policy by restraining Chairman selection committee Dilip Vengsarkar speaking to the media. The gag order came after the meeting of BCCI office bearers held in the capital on Tuesday.

It is only one of the various measures that was taken by BCCI on the selection committee. The Board also decided that the selectors would no longer be allowed to speak to the media, write columns and sit in the dressing room.

The similar practice first came during the tenure of Chandu Borde (1999-2002) and then Syed Kirmani (2003-04), while they were chairman of selectors. From here on there will only be media releases after a selection committee meeting and no selector will be present after the meeting for any interaction.

In addition BCCI is also planning to stop selectors accompanying the team during overseas tours. The measures have been planned so that the selectors would have more time for the domestic cricket rather than international matches.

BCCI secretary Niranjan Shah confirmed that the BCCI wants the selectors to watch more Ranji matches. He also revealed that the Board has instructed the selectors to discharge the players who are not playing in the Indian XI for their domestic duties.

“We don’t want players to sit at the dressing room when their state team is playing,” Shah said.

The Board doesn’t want itself into any situation where they have to come up and clarify their stand for the misinterpretation occurred due to the chief selector’s comments in the media.

It is also known that Vengsarkar told the Board that he would not going to write syndicated columns from now on but wanted to continue with the regular columns, which he has been writing for some time but BCCI informed him that it couldn’t be allowed either.

The alacrity of the BCCI decisions could be gauged, as the Board came up with only a media release for the Indian squad of first Two Tests against Pakistan after the selection committee meeting, instead of the normal conference addressed by chairman selection committee.