Whatmore dropped and Ford makes the home run

June 05: Much to the surprise of Dav Whatmore and hundreds of fans, the coach has been categorically exempted from the race of coaching team India. Earlier the green signal was coming from even the selection panel. Whatmore was having a priority for the high profile task.

Whatmore, considered the leading contender for the post of India's coach was going fine.The BCCI secretary Niranjan Shah said on Sunday that he was the favorite. But some how the think tank has had other ideas and the reasons can be no more than speculations for the time being.

South Africa ’s Graham Ford and an unnamed candidate have been shortlisted by BCCI for the job of the new national coach. Both the shortlisted candidates would be called to meet selection panel of BCCI on Saturday before the final announcement at Chennai.

"We have called Ford for the meeting. We don't want to reveal the other contender's name as we are not sure about his availability yet," said BCCI treasurer N.Srinivasan after the two hour meeting and gave clear indication that the panel is no more interested in Whatmore.

"We have not been able to reach the second person so far but we hope to do it soon," Srinivasan said. "We had made contact with Whatmore before. By implication you can say that Whatmore is out (of contention)," he added.

Ford is believed to have the support of skipper Rahul Dravid, while Whatmore is believed to have lost because of his ‘over-eagerness' to get the coveted job and disliking of some of the panel members like Gavaskar.

Ford, incidentally, didn’t formally apply for the post. The Kent director of cricket may not even be able to make it to the meeting in Chennai.

"We have a match against Yorkshire from June 6 to 10. I don't know how I will make it," he said, just after the BCCI bombshell

Ford was an assistant to the late Bob Woolmer and replaced him as the South African team’s coach after the 1999 World Cup. He guided the team after the 2000 match-fixing scandal and also guided the Natal team.

However rumors are the unnamed contender may be either former England coach Duncan Fletcher or former Sri Lankan captain Arjuna Ranatunga, who receives good favor from Sunil Gavaskar.

It will be interesting to see the second contender for the prestigious post, as things will unveil on Saturday, when the two contenders will meet BCCI.