Questions over selection panel, Sehwag considered for Delhi captaincy

One of the mysteries of Delhi cricket this year has been the Under-25 team which crashed out of the championships thanks to some ordinary selection policies. Sanjay Srivastava had allegedly held the sports committee team to ransom, and apparently got his way to have his son Shelly Shaurya installed as the Delhi U-25 skipper.

The team crashed out quite early and not without controversies. The chairman of the Under-25 selection panel, NP Singh was abused by a former Delhi cricketer after senior cricketer Yogesh Nagar was left out of the team. It created such a furore that DDCA vice-president Chetan Chauhan had to go to the then DDCA president, Arun Jaitley, to apprise him of the controversy. It has been learnt that he also requested him to change the panel, especially remove NP Singh who is considered to be very close to the current sports committee.

Quite surprisingly, NP is now sitting along with Chetan Chauhan in the senior selection committee as one of the decision makers for Delhi’s limited overs team that is to play in Syed Mushtaq Ali T20s as well as Vijay Hazare one-dayers later this month.

The sports committee had decided to change the selection senior panel after the poor performance in Ranji Trophy and only chairman Chetan Chauhan survived.

The probables for the games will be announced on Friday evening and a lot of fireworks are expected to take place in the DDCA.

Of much interest will be the announcement of the Delhi skipper. It has been learnt that the selection committee, pressed by the sports committee, is likely to install Virender Sehwag as the captain of the limited overs team, replacing Gautam Gambhir who was the skipper in the longer format of Delhi during this domestic season. If it happens, it won’t be without a lot of debate.