Bangalore: In the end it was an anti-climax. The much-awaited announcement of the new coach for the Indian cricket team never materialised after the Board of Control for Cricket in India's (BCCI) Coach Selection Committee finished its discussion here late on Monday.

And as the waiting media personnel tensed in anticipation outside the hotel where the meeting was held, the BCCI Treasurer, N. Srinivasan, walked up and mentioned that former South African coach, Graham Ford, and an `unnamed foreigner' were in the race for the coach's job.

Flanked by the BCCI Secretary Niranjan Shah and the Board's Chief Administrative Officer Prof. Ratnakar Shetty, Srinivasan, after a mandatory pause and a `shall we begin' murmur, began his brief discourse.

"Today, the BCCI's Coach Selection Committee met under the chairmanship of Sharad Pawar and after the meeting, we have decided to have further discussions with South African Ford and another candidate, a foreigner whom we can neither name right now, as we are yet to contact him, nor ascertain his willingness for the job. We have decided to have discussions with these two candidates in Chennai on June 9," Srinivasan said.

Succinct reply

The immediate query from the mediapersons was on Dav Whatmore, the former Bangladesh coach, who was until Monday night billed as the most probable coach for the Indian team. "Does that mean Dav Whatmore will not be selected?" was the query and Srinivasan's reply was succinct.

"I have mentioned Ford, who has coached South Africa and who was Director of Cricket with Kent, and I also said that the other candidate is a foreigner with whom we are yet to establish contact and since we have already contacted Whatmore, you can presume that (he has been overlooked)," Srinivasan said.

Earlier the meeting began at 8.45 p.m. after the seven-member Selection Committee assembled at the hotel where all the Afro-Asia Cup teams are also staying. The BCCI President, Sharad Pawar, Niranjan Shah, Joint Secretary M.P. Pandove, Srinivasan along with former captains S. Venkatraghavan, Sunil Gavaskar and Ravi Shastri had a lengthy discussion for more than an hour. The media, barricaded outside and buffeted with strict `no-entry' orders, had no inkling that the meeting was finally over until Pawar trudged out of the hotel and got into his official car and left for the airport.

A speculation

That Monday's meeting would remain inconclusive was a speculation that gathered steam following Shah's impromptu tete-a-tete with the media prior to the Technical Committee meeting at the National Cricket Academy in the afternoon.

"The committee will decide and I cannot say anything. May be this could be a first meeting where names would be discussed but I cannot say whether a decision would be taken," Shah said.

These words, coming from a man who until recently had named Whatmore as the likely candidate to coach the Indian team, left the media in a flap.

The belief is that the seniors in the Indian team are in favour of Ford, but with the BCCI mentioning another unnamed foreigner in the race, the Chennai meeting on June 9 might well spring another surprise.

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