Exactly four months after Chetan Sharma was asked to resign from national selection committee chairman's post for revealing classified information about the Indian team, the BCCI has formally invited applications to fill the post vacated by the former pacer.
The last date of submitting application is June 30, and it is expected that the new selection committee member would be a part of the panel that will pick the squad for the Ireland series, and before that, he is likely to watch the Deodhar Trophy Inter-Zonal competition.
The criteria is no different from earlier years as one needs to play either seven Tests or 10 ODIs or at least 30 first-class matches with five years of retirement from active cricket.
Chetan's committee was sacked after the T20 World Cup debacle but he reapplied, and was reappointed, when the new panel took over in December last year.
However, the sting operation made his position untenable and he was asked to resign after most members of the Indian team didn't want to sit across the table with him.
"Technically, Chetan can apply if he wants to as he had resigned. Obviously, whether he would apply or not is a big question but rules can't stop him from applying once again," a senior BCCI official told PTI on the condition of anonymity.
While some like Lucknow Super Giants mentor Gautam Gambhir (retired December 2018), Yuvraj Singh (retired July 2019) and cricketer turned media pundit Harbhajan Singh (retired 2022) are big names from up North, they don't technically qualify as they haven't completed five years of retirement on the date of application.
The only big name who is eligible is Virender Sehwag but it is a well-known fact that Sehwag, who is an analyst on various platforms and someone who earns a handsome amount from promotional activities, won't be interested in the job if the salary is Rs 1 crore. The rest of the panel members get Rs 90 lakh.
"There is nothing cast in stone that BCCI needs chairman from North Zone since Chetan held the post. They can bring in someone like a Vivek Razdan, Ajay Ratra, Reetinder Singh Sodhi or Atul Wassan and continue with SS Das (23 Tests) as the new chairman," another BCCI source said.
