Sehwag bats for Kumble as chairman of selectors

New Delhi, August 21 

Former skipper Anil Kumble’s ability to boost confidence of the players makes him an ideal candidate for the role of the chairman of selectors, said Virender Sehwag, who also advocated a hike in remuneration for the job. 

The current selection panel, led by MSK Prasad, has faced a lot of flak for it being a lightweight with a cumulative experience of 13 Tests.

“I think Anil Kumble could be the right candidate for the chairman of selectors post. He is someone who has interacted with Sachin (Tendulkar), Sourav (Ganguly) and Rahul (Dravid) as a player and with youngsters as a coach,” Sehwag said. “When I made a comeback (Australia series 2007-08), captain Kumble came to my room and said you will not be dropped for the next two series. That’s the kind of confidence a player needs,” he added.

However, Sehwag also said that he doesn’t think that Kumble will agree to do the job right now since the chairman gets Rs 1 crore per annum. “BCCI needs to raise the bar as far as pay is concerned. Then a lot of players will be interested,” said Sehwag.

 Asked if he would also be interested in this post, Sehwag said that he doesn’t like too many restrictions. “I write columns, appear on TV and being selector will mean a lot of restrictions. I don’t know whether I would like so many restrictions,” he said. — PTI

BCCI awards title sponsorship rights to Paytm

New Delhi: One 97 Communications Pvt. Ltd, owners of Paytm, today retained the sponsorship rights for BCCI’s international and domestic matches with a winning bid of Rs 3.8 crore per match. BCCI announced the deal with Paytm, which had acquired the rights in 2015 for a four-year period. “The winning bid was at a price of Rs 326.80 crores to be paid for 2019-23 home season. The winning bid was Rs 3.8 crores which is at 58% incremental value in comparison to the previous per match value of Rs 2.4 crores,” BCCI said in a statement. PTI