‘HUMILIATION WAS UNCALLED FOR’
GUHA BATS FOR RAHUL DRAVID, ANIL KUMBLE
Ramachandra Guha, who had resigned from his position as one of the four members of the Supreme Court-appointed Committee of Administrators (COA), has chastised the BCCI for its ‘cavalier’ treatment of Rahul Dravid and Zaheer Khan.
Guha took to Twitter to express that Anil Kumble, Dravid and Zaheer did not deserve public humiliation. The two former Indian cricketers were named as assistant coaches (Dravid, as overseas batting coach) as the BCCI and its Cricket Advisory Committee (CAC) announced India’s head coach in Ravi Shastri last week.
While Shastri’s announcement came as no surprise, the CAC and the BCCI did the opposite when they revealed Dravid — already in service with the India Under-19 and India A teams and Zaheer (bowling coach) — as latest additions in what looks like an increasing base of coaches with the Indian national team.
BCCI’s surprise call was met with some criticism, as there were no applications invited for the positions for which Dravid and Zaheer were picked.
Staggeringly, the BCCI followed the announcement with a declaration that Dravid and Zaheer have not yet been confirmed for the roles mentioned earlier, and they were yet to be provided with the contracts.
BCCI’s handling of the matter has been heavily criticised, and now, Guha has joined the many voices against the Indian board.
Guha’s comments came on Sunday, when Indian Express reported the outgoing CoA member Vikram Limaye criticising the handling of the matter between Anil Kumble and captain Virat Kohli.
“It is now very clear that there were issues (between Virat Kohli and Anil Kumble) that existed. I certainly believe that those issues could have been brought to people’s attention a lot earlier, so that the situation could have been managed better. It was brought to our (CoA) attention last minute. Those who were aware of the issue should have raised it earlier; two months earlier, three months earlier; when they got to know of it,” Limaye said.