Tamil Nadu opener Abhinav Mukund was on Tuesday recalled after nearly six years as a back-up opener in the 16-member Indian Test squad for one-off Test against Bangladesh, starting February 9.
The selection committee meeting was delayed by six hours after the new Committee of Administrators (COA) barred joint secretary Amitabh Chaudhary from convening it.
Numerous phone calls and emails were exchanged after which BCCI CEO Rahul Johri convened the meeting.
Back to selection, Tamil Nadu southpaw Mukund is the additional member of the side with Wriddhiman Saha regaining his rightful place as the No 1 wicket-keeper in Tests, replacing Parthiv Patel.
Mukund has been a steady scorer with 849 runs in Ranji Trophy for Tamil Nadu and will return to the national team dressing room after twin tours of West Indies and England in 2011.
Elsewhere, there wasn't much change in the side with Ajinkya Rahane, Jayant Yadav, Hardik Pandya all back in the side having recovered from injuries.
Murali Vijay, Kl Rahul, Cheteshwar Pujara, Karun Nair, R Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja were automatic choices. The pace trio of Ishant Sharma, Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Umesh Yadav also picked themselves. Amit Mishra has been included as an additional spinner.
Squad
India: Virat Kohli (Captain), Kl Rahul, M Vijay, Cheteshwar Pujara, Ajinkya Rahane, Karun Nair, Hardik Pandya, Wriddhiman Saha (wk), Ravichandran Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja, Amit Mishra, Ishant Sharma, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Umesh Yadav, Abhinav Mukund.
Delay in selection meeting
The BCCI selection committee meeting for the one off Test against Bangladesh was delayed by six hours after joint secretary Amitabh Chaudhary was found ineligible to convene the meeting.
The meeting was supposed to be held at 12 noon but started at 6:00 pm after intense drama as Chaudhary, who was present at the five star facility, was not allowed as per chief of Committee of Administrators Vinod Rai's instruction. The Supreme Court order clearly states that Committee of Administrators (COA) will be running with CEO working under them in all matters related to board. It certainly makes Chaudhary persona non-grata as far as decision-making of the internal board matters are concerned.
It was around 12 noon Chaudhary was told that he has to wait as he is not (rpt not) eligible to attend the meeting. It was Rahul Johri, the CEO who convened the meeting by video conferencing with skipper Virat Kohli joining from Bangalore via Skype.
"Amitabh Chaudhary had called a senior selection committee meeting in Delhi today to select the squad against Bangladesh. Vinod Rai and Co have immediately swung in and barred him from doing anything. The CEO is directly convening the meeting via video conference from Mumbai," a BCCI source, who was witness to every incident here, told PTI on Tuesday.
All was not well was understood when BCCI mandarins broke for lunch with one of the selectors Sarandeep Singh was not even around.
Some of the waiting media members were told that meeting will start at 3 pm but then around 3:30 pm Sarandeep was seen entering the hotel and looked clueless about when the meeting will start.
Around 4 pm, he went up and joined his colleagues as the meeting was presumed to be started but at around 5: 30 pm, BCCI GM (Cricket Operations) MV Sridhar came down and said that they are still getting a few clarifications before starting at around 6 pm.
Tuesday's incident proved that Chaudhary probably is not authorised to function as joint secretary and will go to Dubai as BCCI representative only as he has a thorough background knowledge that investment banker Vikram limaye will be needing for future meetings.