The Supreme Court-ordered Lodha Commitee, on Saturday, lashed out the Board of Control for Cricket in India inviting applications for India head coach despite Anil Kumble’s impressive work over the past year, reported Times of India.
Kumble’s contract runs out at the end of the Champions Trophy in June and the Indian board, on Thursday, posted a job opening, asking interested candidates to submit their applications by May 31. The BCCI, though, stated that Kumble “will be a direct entry for the [selection] process”.
Gopal Sankaranarayanan, secretary of the Lodha Committee, slammed the BCCI, picking out the board awarding short-term contracts to coaches as a “ludicrous” procedure,
“Kumble does not deserve this kind of treatment. This isn’t the right way to treat your national coach. One year coaching tenure is a ludicrous thing to do. For a national coach, year-to-year appointment isn’t the way forward. Who will come for a one year tenure,” Sankaranarayanan said.
“You can see that this is done deliberately by the board officials. You can’t be giving a piece meal to your national coach. The next contract shouldn’t be for a year,” he added.
Sankaranarayanan hinted at the former India Test skipper paying the price for his supposed proximity the Committee of Adminstrators and Lodha Panel: “Kumble has stood up for the players and pointed out that they don’t get a penny from the ICC while it all goes into unaccounted pockets. Clearly people are unhappy with that.”
India skipper Virat Kohli, on Friday, defended the BCCI, explaining that they were only following due procedure by inviting fresh applications. He said: “The process has been followed every single time the similar way and for the past so many years is what I know. Even the last time, the post was up for a change, the same procedure was applied.”
Under Kumble, India have won 12 out of the 17 Tests they played over the past year, losing just one of them while registering series wins against West Indies, New Zealand, England, Bangladesh and Australia.