COA includes Debasish Mohanty in India U-19 selection commitee
Debasish Mohanty has been confirmed as the new member of the National Junior selection committee after one post was being vacated post-Venkatesh Prasad's resignation from the role in last March. Mohanty, in an international career spanning over four years, has played 45 ODIs and two Tests for India.
Earlier in March, Prasad resigned from the role of the chairman of India's junior selection committee to avoid a potential conflict of interest and after some days, assumed the role of bowling coach in Kings XI Punjab. Prasad had a successful stint as the head of the junior selection panel and now SportsCafe understands that the void is going to be filled by his former teammate, Mohanty.
Earlier, Sachin Tendulkar, VVS Laxman, and Sourav Ganguly have all refused to be involved in the appointment of the national junior selection committee member. CoA chief Vinod Rai had earlier written to the trio earlier this week, requesting them to pick one of the three candidates to replace Venkatesh Prasad.
But the triplet have all backed out from choosing a specific person from the candidates mentioned for different reasons altogether. Ashish Kapoor, Rakesh Parekh, Gyanendra Pandey, and Amit Sharma are the other existing members of the junior selection committee. The CoA had shortlisted former cricketers Debashish Mohanty from Odisha (2 Tests & 117 First Class matches), Sujit Somasundar from Karnataka (97 FC matches) and Zakaria Zuffri from Assam (73 FC matches) to replace Prasad.
However, Mohanty confirmed SportsCafe that he has already been communicated by the BCCI on the same and he is waiting to finish the formalities.
"This is a confirmed news. I am a part of the junior selection committee now. Lot of responsibility and it's a different kind of pressure. My mindset will that of a coach. I have been a coach my self so I know that. Players from under 19 level graduate to the senior team like Prithvi Shaw recently did... So this is a major role," Mohanty told SportsCafe.
Mohanty has the experience of coaching Odisha Ranji team, playing 117 first-class games and also coaching National Cricket Academy camp various times.
Mohanty, who had taken 57 wickets in the ODIs for India, has been best remembered for his wonderful performance in the Sahara Cup against Pakistan in which he dismissed Saeed Anwar four times in a row. The former Pakistan opener even went as far as asking Sachin Tendulkar to give him some tips on how to counter the bowler with a very different action than usual. Mohanty also holds the record of having picked up all 10 wickets in an innings of a Duleep Trophy game against a star-studded South Zone team in 2001.
0
0
0
0
0
0
Comments
Sign up or log in to your account to leave comments and reactions
0 Comments