Former India chairman of selectors Chetan Sharma, who stepped down from the role after a controversial sting operation, was back donning the selector’s hat when he chaired the North Zone meeting for Duleep Trophy on Thursday.
The meeting, convened by veteran cricket administrator Anirudh Chaudhry, was attended by various other representatives of the associations falling in the zone. Former BCCI treasurer Chaudhry said Sharma attended the meeting as a representative of the Haryana Cricket Association and chaired it on the basis of his seniority.
“According to the BCCI constitution, every state association can nominate its representative for the zonal selection meeting. Haryana chose to nominate Chetan Sharma and he chaired the meeting since he was the senior most of the lot,” Chaudhry tells News18 CricketNext.
Chaudhry further added that Chetan’s presence added a lot of gravitas to the entire process and everything was conducted in a very fair and transparent manner.
“His presence today was invaluable. Him being a former national chairman of selector added so much weight and perspective to the discussion. He has already seen these players from close quarters and added so many good inputs. He had attended the meeting last year too but that was in the capacity of BCCI selector. I can add that it was probably one of the most fruitful meetings I have been part of and everything was done so professionally and amicably. The team which you see, which I can well say looks very strong, has been picked on merit and all selectors were on the same page. The intention was to assemble a squad which goes on to win the title and I hope we do that,” adds Chaudhry.
The wait for chairman of India’s senior selection committee continues and it remains to be seen whether BCCI will entertain Chetan Sharma once again. The hunt for the chairperson is still on and the Indian cricket board is yet to find a suitable candidate from the North Zone.
As far as BCCI goes, it will be interesting to see how the current set of office bearers react to the news of Chetan Sharma chairing a selection meeting for the Duleep Trophy.
“It will be interesting to see how they react. Since Chetan Sharma was in a way again selecting a team for a BCCI tournament, one of the most important tournaments in the circuit right now. In all fairness, Chetan resigned from the post and hasn’t been banned or something but reactions from the board officials will be interesting,” says a source tracking developments.
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