Delhi shuts door on ‘outsider’ selectors

It’s clearly a case of shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted. Halfway through the domestic season, the DDCA sports commit...

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It’s clearly a case of shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted. Halfway through the domestic season, the DDCA sports committee has decided that only those who’ve played for Delhi can be made selector of any Delhi team, including the Ranji side.

The ‘major decision’, taken unanimously by the working sports committee on Monday, had it that ‘‘no player who has not played for Delhi shall be made selector.’’ The timing is perfect: not only are half the matches over, all team selections have long been made, the last one being that of U-22 squad a fortnight ago.

The rationale, as offered by DDCA sports secretary Sunil Dev, is even more intriguing: ‘‘Their (outsiders’) heart and soul is not with the Delhi team.’’

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Didn’t the sports committee think of it when they picked the selectors at the beginning of the season? ‘‘They probably thought about it now. Anyway, this decision will come into force from the next season’’, Dev added.

One committee member said some objections had been raised, at the beginning of the season, to the appointment of ‘outsiders’ but it was rejected because the sports committee thought people with the knowledge of the game should be picked as selectors, irrespective of which state they might have represented earlier.

What happened next is clear: elections to the DDCA are due anytime now, so bold announcements have to be made with an eye on votes.

Who are the ‘outsiders’? This season’s Ranji Trophy selection committee has three on its panel:

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• Selection committee chairman Yashpal Sharma never played first-class cricket for Delhi, he’d represented Punjab, Haryana and Railways

• N P Singh, now with Indian Airlines, was member of the Railways Ranji squad

• Sunil Khanna played a few Ranji games for Punjab.

• On the U-22 selection panel, Raju Tandon, an NIS coach at IG Stadium, is an ‘outsider.’

• Two of the three U-19 selectors — Pradeep Kashyap and Mahesh Bhati — never played for Delhi.

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• U-17 has Pradeep Gupta and Devender Bisht as the two not to have played for the state while Pawan Sharma and Bhola Shankar from the under-15 selectors panel never played for Delhi.