The Supreme Court-mandated Committee of Administrators decided that coaches with the Indian cricket team will only get two-year contracts from now, reported the Indian Express on Tuesday.
“Now all contracts will be for two years,” said Vinod Rai, chairman of the COA, according to the report. “Any new contract that the BCCI enters into will have to comply with the Lodha reforms. It can’t be in conflict. And the Lodha Committee recommendation clearly says that the national contracts should be of [at least] 12 months. So 10 months for national team and two months with the IPL can no longer work.”
This may mean that national cricket team coaches will no longer be able to do coaching stints with Indian Premier League teams anymore. The earlier contracts were of 10 months and did not cover the months of April and May, which enabled coaches to seek stints at the Indian Premier League.
Former COA member Ramachandra Guha had criticised this system in his resignation letter on June 2. “The BCCI has accorded preferential treatment to some national coaches, by giving them ten month contracts for national duty, thus allowing them to work as IPL coaches/mentors for the remaining two months,” wrote Guha.
Without naming him explicitly, Guha also hit out at Delhi Daredevils mentor Rahul Dravid whom he claimed had benefitted from this arrangement. “On the 11th of March, I was told that that there was a camp scheduled for young players at the National Cricket Academy but at least one national coach was likely to be away on IPL work and might not attend the camp,” wrote the noted historian in his resignation letter.
Dravid responded to the charge by stating that under the BCCI’s rules, he was not under conflict of interest. He had sought further clarity on the rules.
