Now Rathour's name crops up for NCA batting consultant's position, Kanitkar also in fray

Ignored for India U-19 batting coach's job due to conflict of interest, former India batsman Vikram Rathour has now applied for the position of batting consultant at the Rahul Dravid-headed National Cricket Academy.

Another prominent former international to have applied for the post is Hrishikesh Kanitkar, who has also won two Ranji Trophy titles with Rajasthan.

Rathour's name had earlier come up for the U-19 batting coach's position but with his brother-in-law Ashish Kapoor being one of the junior national selectors, his case was scuttled.

It has been learnt that Rathour and Kanitkar are among the four applicants for the NCA coach's job.

The problem area here is that the NCA batting coach's job is to primarily work with the age-group boys and not the senior team members, who normally come to the Bengaluru centre only for rehabilitation.

In fact, a few senior officials in BCCI have started questioning why Rathour, who only till few years back was a national selector, has been applying again and again when this 'conflict of interest' issue keeps cropping up. Till Kapoor remains a junior national selector, Rathour will remain in the conflict of interest net as per Lodha recommendations.

"The CoA was kept in the dark by GM (Cricket Operations) Saba Karim and due diligence wasn't done before recommending his name for the post. It has been learnt that once again Rathour's name has come up and one senior official is constantly dropping Rahul Dravid's name to clear Rathour's appointment. Dravid, till date, has not given in writing that he is recommending Rathour for the job," a senior BCCI official, privy to the development, said on condition of anonymity.

However, a source close to the CoA confirmed that while Rathour's name is up for discussion, nothing has been finalised.

The other issue is that the former Punjab batsman is not an Indian passport holder but the logic being given while recommending his name is that if Australian Patrick Farhart can be the physio, why can't Rathour be the batting consultant.

Rathour had a modest international career and played 6 Tests and 7 ODIs.

Kanitkar, on the other hand, has had some success in the 31 ODIs that he played, and his boundary off Saqlain Mushtaq in the Independence Cup final in Dhaka in 1998 is still remembered.

At the domestic level, he was the coach of the Tamil Nadu team that won the Vijay Hazare Trophy in 2018.

In another development, it has been learnt that Dravid, by virtue of being the Head of Cricket Operations at the NCA, will decide if any head coach is needed for the U-19 and A teams, which are now touring with interim coaches.

Fielding coach Abhay Sharma is in charge of the colts side which is playing in England while Shitanshu Kotak is in charge of the A team in the West Indies.