BCCI sends four selectors to Bihar

Kolkata: Almost two weeks after not having enough selectors to select different national-level teams for domestic cricket, Bihar Cricket Association (BCA) got a sigh of relief on the eve of the biggest festival of the state – Chhath Puja, as Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) sent former India cricketers Chetan Sharma, Harvinder Singh, Salil Ankola and Neetu David to Bihar as selectors on Friday.

Initially, three selectors’ posts were lying vacant in the senior men’s category, while the senior women’s and junior boys’ committees had one vacancy each. Then, as reported in TOI, one selector was added on an ad-hoc basis to the senior men’s category on Oct 14 as per BCCI guidelines to select the Ranji Trophy squad two days ahead of the opening-round match.

“It’s good to have all these experienced ex-India players as BCA selectors. As of now we have included Chetan Sharma and Harvinder Singh to the senior men’s committee, Salil Ankola to the junior boys’ committee and Neetu David to the senior women’s committee. They will closely work with the other selectors to select various squads for Bihar,” a BCA official told TOI.


“Squad for the first two Ranji Trophy games has already been selected ahead of our first game, so we will get enough time to select the squad for the third game, which starts on Nov 1,” he further added.

The selectors sent by BCCI had a meeting with the BCA secretary Ziaul Arefin and other office bearers of the association to discuss the key objectives of Bihar cricket and work related to the selection process.

After the meeting, a session was held with all the other selectors about the preparations for the upcoming matches and the respective teams’ recent performance, including the players’ technical performance, training methodology and fitness.

It was also decided in the meeting that training facilities and ground quality will be modernized and coordination between coaches, selectors and technical experts will be made more effective. Special emphasis was also placed on data analysis and video review systems for continuous monitoring of the players’ performance to ensure improvements at every level.

As for Bihar’s next Ranji Trophy encounter, they will take on Manipur in an away game of Plate Group, in Nadiad, Gujarat starting Saturday. They would like to carry on the momentum after opening their campaign with a bonus-point win against Arunachal Pradesh at home.