Served conflict notice, Shanta resigns
SANJIV GUPTA HAD FILED THE COMPLAINT AGAINST THE TRIO WHO PICKED RAVI SHASTRI AS THE HEAD COACH
NEW DELHI: Former India captain Shantha Rangaswamy has stepped down from her position as a member of the Cricket Advisory Committee (CAC) and director of the Indian Cricketers Association (ICA) after being served a conflict of interest notice by BCCI ethics officer DK Jain.
“I have other plans so have decided to move on. The CAC was anyway meeting once in a year or once in two years so I did not understand the conflict,” Rangaswamy said. “It was an honour to be on the CAC committee. It will be tough to find suitable former cricketers for any administrative role in the current scenario (conflict of interest). The ICA I would have resigned anyway before the elections were held. So it was a matter of time,” she added.
Rangaswamy, who was a member of the CAC along with Kapil Dev and Anshuman Gaekwad, sent her resignation letter to the Committee of Administrators (CoA) and the Board’s CEO, Rahul Johri, via email early on Sunday.
The Board’s ethics officer had sent a notice to CAC members on Saturday, asking the former cricketers who picked the current India coach to respond by October 10 to the conflict of interest allegations levelled against them.
MPCA life member Sanjiv Gupta had filed the complaint against the trio who picked Ravi Shastri as head coach in August.
As per the BCCI constitution, no individual can hold more than one post at the same time.
In the complaint, Gupta has claimed the CAC members don multiple cricketing roles.
He wrote that 1983 World Cup winning captain Kapil is conflicted as he is a commentator, owns a floodlight company, and is a member of the Indian Cricketers Association besides his CAC role.
Gupta has alleged former India batsman and coach Gaekwad too is conflicted as he owns an academy and is a member of BCCI Affiliation Committee.
Rangaswamy, the former India women’s team skipper, is alleged to be conflicted because of her multiple roles with the CAC and ICA.
The CAC had also picked the women’s head coach, WV Raman, in December but at that time it was an ad-hoc committee.
Shastri was a re-appointed for a two-year period that ends with the 2021 T20 World Cup in India. This is Shastri’s fourth stint with the national team, having served briefly as the cricket manager (2007 tour of Bangladesh), team director (2014-2016) and head coach (2017-2019).