According to an article published on cricketcountry.com, cricket journalist Debashish Dutta revealed on a TV show, that BCCI President N.Srinivasan showed Mohinder Amarnath the door, after the former North Zone selector made the pitch for Virat Kohli's appointment as Indian skipper for the 2012 CB Series in Australia.
Speaking on the television channel Neo Prime’s live talk show Dial C for Cricket on Thursday, Dutta said, “Why did Mohinder Amarnath lose his job? You tell me. Because, he made one mistake: he selected Virat Kohli as captain for the CB series in Australia?”
The anchor, Mikkhail Vaswani, was taken by surprise and asked Dutta whether he was sure about his claims. The journalist emphatically shot back, “I am 110% sure about this.”
According to Dutta, the selectors had all but appointed Kohli as the captain for the tri-series in Australia earlier this year. The decision did not materialise as Srinivasan intervened and used his power under the BCCI rules to overturn the decision. Dutta elaborated, “While the selection committee meeting was going on, the convenor of the meeting Mr. Sanjay Jagdale called up the Board President – who was playing golf in Chennai.
“He (Srinivasan) had to then come with a rule book of the BCCI - which said that if you want to pick the team and the captain – it has to be ratified by the President. That’s it. Things were overturned.” So much for the ‘powers’ of the national selectors and the freedom and they have to pick a team of their choice freely and fearlessly!
Mahendra Singh Dhoni’s proximity to Srinivasan is an open secret. The Indian captain is also the captain of Chennai Super Kings – the Indian Premier League (IPL) owned by Srinivsan.
“Finally when the selectors left, they said this is the team – you choose your own captain. Our President couldn’t take that heated discussion," Dutta added.
