The process of the appointment of the general manager, cricket operations, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), seems to be generating a fair amount of controversy.

The main point of contention, within the Board, is a clause which makes it mandatory for the candidate to be a postgraduate.

"Going by the criteria set for the applicant, a lot of capable people, extremely well-suited for the job would never even be appointed for this position. It seems playing at the highest level and a higher level of intelligence isn't sufficient," said a senior Board official, adding: "Even greats like Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, Virender Sehwag, Sourav Ganguly and VVS Laxman wouldn't qualify for the job, since none of them are postgraduates, whereas these people are ideally suited to take Indian cricket forward.

"Questions need to be raised about who set the qualifications criteria for this job. It's a mystery who set them. Was it done to keep out people from a particular lobby?"

The official also questioned the likely appointment of former India seamer Venkatesh Prasad, who was interviewed on November 2, for the post. "When Chetanya Nanda wanted to sit for the exam of the match referee, he wasn't permitted to do so, because he's already employed by the BCCI (at acting president CK Khanna's office). So, why was Prasad, who's the junior chief selector, permitted to take part in this?" he lamented.Meanwhile, TOI has accessed a chain of mails between Amitabh Chaudhary, the acting secretary of the board, and Anirudh Chaudhary, the treasurer, in which the latter has accused Amitabh of not keeping the top office-bearers in the loop over the important appointment.

"You have not kept the other office-bearers apprised of the developments. You ought to have at least kept the acting president apprised of the developments since you're also supposed to work under the supervision and control of the president as per the rules and regulations of the BCCI. Your and the CEO's lack of communication to the other office-bearers has resulted in a situation where we're not even aware of what's happening and this is an opaque method of governance," writes Anirudh.

"I'm sure that the Hon'b CoA has the information communicated to youin thehope that you'd communicate it to the others as well. The very fact that they're communicating something to you indicates that they wish for their decisions to be known to the others.

"To the CoA, I would humbly like to request that the office-bearers may please be involved in the process in order to satisfy ourselves about the person which the organization is to employ, of which we're the elected representatives," Anirudh goes on to say in the mail.

When Amitabh mentions that the advertisement for the post was "uploaded on October 16, 2017, more than two weeks before your e-mail," Anirudh fires back: "Kindly explain the relevance of this? You'd not circulated or shared the advertisement for information with me before having the same issue and I'm sure you appreciate that an office-bearer need not come to know about something like this through an advertisement, a newspaper report or by word of mouth. It's a reflection on your role as the acting secretary if an office-bearer comes to know of developments in the Board through a medium external to the organization."

To this, Amitabh responds: "The minutes of the various meetings held by CoA are published on the website of the BCCI."

(Courtesy: The Times of India)