Selectors Vision To 'coincide' With Shastri's Words

It's Vikram Rathour vs J Arun Kumar for batting coach; no Jonty Rhodes for Team India

Call them Super Selectors or simply selectors who are bestowed with super powers by the BCCI. The focus is once again on the BCCI selection committee, led by MSK Prasad, as they sit together for over two days starting Monday morning to make a slightly different selection --- to choose the batting, bowling and fielding coach for Team India in Mumbai. The Committee of Administrators have sternly struck down requests of inputs from Kapil Dev's CAC panel as well as from coach Ravi Shastri and placed the matter straight into the hands of the selection committee. There are several questions waiting to be answered. Will the current support staff of Sanjay Bangar, Bharat Arun and R Sridhar also be given a fresh contract like Head coach Ravi Shastri? If not, who are the likely contenders? Will any particular individual be made a scapegoat to ensure that this entire process involving the CAC, CoA, GM operation, CEO and the selection committee is not deemed as a farce. According to sources, batting coach Bangar will be replaced as the selection committee feels that he has been given a long run and the results haven't been too impressive. Team India has issues with openers in Test and T20 format, middle order in ODIs and the inability of work on the batsmen's form is likely to work against him. Interestingly, the same selection committee has had maximum trouble sorting out the batsmen due to various issues like combination block and poor form. Former selector and Team India opener Vikram Rathour is leading the race to replace him and he will get a tight finish from Karnataka batsmen J Arun Kumar and former Indian middle order batsman Hrishikesh Kanitkar. Rathour has been the India A coach and worked in the NCA as well on several ocassions while Arun Kumar has the credit of leading Karnataka team to treble championships in the domestic season. Kanitkar has had fair share of success with Tamil Nadu team and is known for his batting acumen. Sources also confirm that bowling coach Bharat Arun and fielding coach R Sridhar will be retained. What it means is that Jonty Rhodes' claim will be ignored while third candidate -- India A fielding coach Abhay Sharma only has an outside chance. It also means that Shastri's vocal appeal in the media to retain his two people will be accepted. Despite inviting applications from foreign coaches, BCCI is firm on keeping all Indian coaching set up and that is the only reason why Rhodes will lose out. As far as bowling coach is concerned, Venkatesh Prasad, Subroto Mukherjee and Paras Mhambrey are likely to make an impression without impacting the chances of Bharat Arun. The selection committee is likely to come out with their recommendations by Thursday evening and from the looks of it, its likely to be Rathour, Bharat Arun and R Sridhar as Team India support staff.