The BCCI Ethics Officer D K Jain on Saturday sent a notice to Cricket Advisory Committee comprising Kapil Dev, Shantha Rangaswamy and Anshuman Gaekwad, asking the former cricketers who picked the current India coach to respond by October 10 to the Conflict of Interest allegations leveled against them. MPCA life member Sanjiv Gupta had filed the complaint against the trio who picked Ravi Shastri as the head coach in August. "Yes, they have been asked to respond to the complaint with affidavits," a BCCI official told PTI. As per the BCCI constitution, no individual can hold more than one post at the same time.

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Kapil Dev-led CAC served notice

In the complaint, Gupta has claimed that the CAC members don multiple cricketing roles. He wrote that 1983 World Cup-winning captain Kapil Dev is conflicted as he is a commentator, owner of a floodlight company, member of Indian Cricketers Association, besides his CAC role.  Likewise, Gupta alleged that Gaekwad too is conflicted as he owns an academy and is a member of the BCCI Affiliation Committee. Rangaswamy, a former Indian women's team captain, is alleged to be conflicted because of her multiple roles with the CAC and ICA. The CAC had also picked the women's head coach W V Raman in December but at that time it was an ad-hoc committee. Ravi Shastri was a re-appointed for a two-year period, ending with the 2021 T20 World Cup in India. This is Shastri's fourth stint with the national team, having served briefly as the Cricket Manager (2007 tour of Bangladesh), Team Director (2014-2016) and head coach (2017-2019). 

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Rahul Dravid’s conflict of interest

Due to this conflict, Dravid deposed himself before the Ethics Officer to explain the charges filed against him. The complaint was filed by the MPCA member Sanjeev Gupta who had stated that instead of completely resigning from his position at India Cements, the Indian batting legend had only taken a leave of absence. Dravid, however, found some support from the Committee of Administrators (CoA) head Vinod Rai, who stated that a leave of absence from an organization cannot be seen as a conflict with that person’s current employment position. A BCCI official spoke to PTI about the matter. He said, "The CoA chief had written a note before the deposition that they feel if Dravid has taken a Leave of Absence, then he is not in conflict. He cited examples of former RBI Governor Rajan, who took leave of absence from his teaching role at the University of Chicago".

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