Gursharan selected, then rejected

In a sudden turnaround, the National Cricket Academy on Friday decided not to include former Test player Gursharan Singh after naming him as the fifth coach for its North Zone academy, which started functioning in Delhi on May 1.

After the NCA managing committee meeting in Bombay on Friday, chairman Raj Singh Dungarpur told reporters the decision to drop the former Delhi and Punjab batsman was unanimous.

"I put the proposal about the inclusion of a fifth coach during the meeting, but the committee overruled it, as only the NCA has the powers to choose the coaches. We have chosen former Test players Yaspal Sharma as the main coach and Chetan Sharma, Surinder Khanna and former Ranji player Rajinder Amarnath as coaches," he added.

Not in the original list of four, Gursharan was included at the behest of some North Zone officials after Amarnath's name was struck off. However, the youngest son of the illustrious Lala Amarnath regained favour with the committee after he protested his exclusion and Gursharan Singh was dropped.

On the first day of operations at the academy, Gursharan, who runs his own academy in south Delhi, was a mere spectator, watching the training from the sidelines. However, by the second day, he was included as the fifth coach and NCA chairman Raj Singh Dungarpur said his name was inadvertently left out. This meant that the North Zone academy had five coaches against four for the other zones. But Friday's decision brought the whole issue back to square one.

Dungarpur also informed that an inter-academy one-day tournament, to be named after a distinguished coach, would be held later this year. He said it will form the criteria to select the India under-19 team for the World Cup in New Zealand in January 2002. India are the World champions in the under-19 category.

It was also decided that the under-19 team would go to New Zealand ten days before the tournament and play at least three practice matches there.

The meeting was attended by former Test players Sunil Gavaskar and Polly Umrigar, NCA vice-chairman D C Agashe, Mumbai Cricket Association joint secretary Prof Ratnakar Shetty, former Board of Control for Cricket in India treasurer S K Nair and current incumbent Kishore Rungta, NCA director (administration) Brijesh Patel and BCCI secretary J Y Lele.

Mail Cricket Editor