Reports | BCCI expected to introduce split captaincy after sacking selection committee

After India’s disappointing exit from the recently-concluded T20 World Cup, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) on Friday made a bold move by sacking the Chetan Sharma-led committee of selectors with immediate effect. At the same time, the board invited fresh applications for the vacant post and confirmed the applicants can submit till November 28 for the role.

Usually, a senior national selector gets a four-year term subject to extension. However, Chetan, Harvinder Singh, Sunil Joshi, and Debasish Mohanty did not have the best of stints, serving for the shortest period of time as senior national selectors. While Joshi and Harvinder were appointed national selectors in February 2020, Chetan took over as chairman of selectors after the AGM in January 2021, with Mohanty and Kuruvilla joining alongside him.

As per PTI, the newly-formed selection committee will be asked to pick captains across three formats, effectively implementing the concept of split captaincy in Indian cricket.

“For Chetan to save his job, India needed to win the T20 World Cup. Nothing less could have saved him. But once, he was asked to select four squads at one go (New Zealand and Bangladesh away series) which was unprecedented, one could read between the lines,” a BCCI insider told PTI regarding the BCCI’s decision.

The PTI report further added Rohit Sharma is likely to continue as the leader in Tests and ODIs, while all-rounder Hardik Pandya may be appointed the captaincy in the shortest format till the next T20 World Cup, to be played in the USA and West Indies in 2024.