Ex-India women’s coach Tushar Arothe: Get rid of godmothers

Former India womenrsquos team coach Tushar Arothe has said that WV Raman should have been retained as the coach He has also come down heavily on the national selection committeeThe BCCI recently reappointed Ramesh Powar as the womenrsquos team coach after his contract was not renewed in 2018 due to a fallout with star player Mithali RajldquoWV should have been given another chance He was with the Indian womenrsquos team for oneandahalf years and one year was lost in the Covid19 pandemic There was no activity during that period The team which he got for the South Africa series where we lost the T20 and ODI series in March was because of the selectorsrsquo mess Itrsquos wasnrsquot WVrsquos mistakerdquoArothe told midday from Baroda on TuesdayYoungsters losing outArothe too had applied for the coachrsquos position but was not shortlisted for the interview conducted by the Cricket Advisory Committee comprising S Madan Lal chairman Sulakshana Naik and RP SinghAccording to Arothe the Indian team comprising seniors and promising youngsters are unable to unlock their complete potential due to lack of vision of the national selection committee headed by Neetu DavidWV RamanldquoSelection is a major concern as selectors have no vision for the team They had no business in dropping Taniya Bhatia wicketkeeper Shikha Pandey allrounder and Shafali Verma opener against South Africa in the ODI series They were playing after 12 months and the selectors said that the players were given restrdquo fumed Arothe 54 The other major issue is the influence and interference of former womenrsquos cricketers which he termed as lsquogodmothersrsquo ldquoBCCI should listen to the coach not the players In womenrsquos cricket things donrsquot reach the BCCI secretary because the godmothers are very active These past cricketers donrsquot know what happens on the ground Players narrate something to their godmothers which is different from the actual scenario so these people former players should be kept awayrdquo said Arothe who scored 6105 runs and took 225 wickets with his offspin in 114 firstclass games for BarodaAgendadriven selectorsArothe claimed the selectors were often driven by agenda during his 15month tenure from April 2017 to August 2018 ldquoWhat about accountability of players Nobody is checking whether they are performing or not I still remember I was the only person to carry every playerrsquos performances of the last three to four series The selectors had no data with them They just came with an agenda to pick some player and drop someone without any solid reasonrdquo said ArotheThe Indian womenrsquos team will tour England for a oneoff Test three ODIs and as many T20I games starting next monthAlso ReadLisa Sthalekar slams BCCI for poor communication with Veda Krishnamurthy