I am ready to recuse if found conflicted, says VVS Laxman

BCCI ombudsman DK Jain served a notice to VVS Laxman, Sachin Tendulkar and Sourav Ganguly on the basis of a complaint filed by Madhya Pradesh Cricket Association (MPCA) life member Sanjeev Gupta for performing dual role as mentors and CAC members.

As already known that the work of the members in the Cricket Advisory committee is to select the coaches for the team, improve the performance of the national team overseas, improve the quality of bowlers by managing their work load and ensure education and life-skills of young cricketers. On his reply to the allegations over him and his cricketing fraternity, said that he was not given a chance to do his role well as a member of CAC.

 “It will be worthwhile to note that the reason I agreed to be a member was because of the various inputs we were originally tasked with contributing towards the sustained growth of Indian cricket,” he wrote in his reply, reported PTI.

“The opportunity to be involved meaningfully in India’s climb towards becoming a cricketing superpower post retirement was privilege enough for me to turn down the offer of remuneration of being a part of CAC,” Laxman said in his affidavit, point 3 (c).

“The allegation of the complainant are baseless as we are in no manner selectors of either players or coaches and CAC is not a permanent body,” he wrote.

Laxman went over and  castigated the Committee of Administrators handling of Cricket Advisory Committee and said that he didn’t get a valid reply in time from the Committee of Advisors on his request to clarify his roles and responsibilities.

“On December 7, 2018, we had written to the the Committee of Administrators requesting them to clarify the scope of our role and responsibilities. To this date, there has been no reply. Since no tenure had been mentioned in the letter of intent issued in 2015, it was only reasonable to expect some communication on whether the CAC was still in existence. Unfortunately that hasn’t been forthcoming,”

He said that the no CAC members were given the chance to speak their heart on the selection of national team’s coach. He added that the three membered CAC team(Ganguly, Laxman and Tendulkar) was not properly consulted with, for the selection of Indian women team’s head coach.

“…none of the CAC members has (sic) been called on to give our opinion on any subjects except to be invited to be involved in the selection of national coaches and, once, the selection of junior national selectors. However, this is by no means a regular process and I am in no manner to be considered a selector.” Laxman said.

“In December 2018, we were given a little over 24 hours to confirm our availability to be on the panel to select the India women’s head coach. All three of us expressed our inability to participate in the process due to short notice and prior commitments,” he added.

Laxman while concluding said that he is ready to recuse if he is found conflicted.

“It is my respectful submission that when I am barely required to discharge any duties as a member of the CAC, which I wasn’t even sure existed due to the lack of communication until I received this notice, questions of any conflict of interest doesn’t arise,” Laxman concluded.