There are a number of illustrious candidates vying for the position of senior selector, including Maninder Singh and SS Das

Maninder Singh, a former left-arm spinner, and Shiv Sunder Das, an opener who has appeared in more than 20 Tests for India, are two renowned names that have applied for senior national selector positions. Both candidates have extensive playing experience. It was not possible to determine whether or whether the former pacer Ajit Agarkar had applied for the position.

Because of his extensive experience on an international scale, many people believe that if Agarkar makes the effort to submit his application, he will be offered the position of chairman of the selection committee. It has been speculated that Salil Ankola, the current chairman of the senior Mumbai squad, Samir Dighe, a former goalkeeper, and Vinod Kambli, a flamboyant player, had applied from Mumbai.

It is believed that more than fifty people have submitted applications for the new panel before the deadline of six o’clock on Monday evening; nevertheless, there are not a great number of heavyweights competing for the position.

No one else among the confirmed applicants has played in more tests than Maninder has (35 Tests), and Das is now in second place on that list with 21 Tests played.

However, Maninder Singh had also applied for the position in 2021, and while making it through to the interview process, he was ultimately defeated by Chetan Sharma. Chetan Sharma was the candidate that the then-Cricket Advisory Committee (CAC), which was led by Madan Lal, preferred.

In point of fact, Chetan had played a smaller number of matches as compared to Maninder, but in terms of stature, the two were practically on par with one another. Both had been rising stars in the middle to late 1980s before their careers petered out.

Maninder affirmed to PTI that he had submitted his application, “Yes, I have applied.”

Sources familiar with the situation have confirmed that Das, who is currently serving as the senior Punjab team’s batting coach, has applied for the position. Given that the East Zone hardly ever produces Test players of any renown, Das has a very good chance of being appointed to the position of selector.

However, it is not certain at this time if Das’ native state of Odisha will support his candidacy.

Agarkar, while being the favourite, did not win the job the last time because the previous MCA regime had not backed him, and the officials wanted Abey Kuruvilla instead.

The remaining names come from the North zone and are previous lightweight cricketers.

In addition to Maninder, former India players Atul Wassan, Nikhil Chopra (Delhi), Ajay Ratra (Haryana), and Reetinder Singh Sodhi (Punjab) have thrown their names into the ring to represent the North zone.

With the exception of Das, the other names from the East zone are not very significant. They include Prabhanjan Mullick, Rashmi Ranjan Parida from Odisha, Subhamoy Das, Saradindu Mukherjee and Sourasish Lahiri from Bengal.

Two former players for India, Deep Dasgupta and Laxmi Ratan Shukla, have chosen not to apply for the position. Laxmi Ratan Shukla is currently the coach of Bengal.

It is thought that Amay Khurasiya of Madhya Pradesh and Gyanendra Pandey of Uttar Pradesh have filed for the position from the central zone.

Even though there are no rules that are written down, the BCCI typically adheres to the tradition of equal distribution. As a result, the five junior selectors and the five senior selectors have come from a total of ten different states in recent years.

So, the junior selection committee contains one member each from the states of Gujarat (Krishan Mohan), Punjab (Ranadeb Bose), Harvinder Sodhi from Tamil Nadu, and Harvinder Sodhi from Punjab (Pathik Patel).

As a result, it is reasonable to anticipate that candidates hailing from these five states will most likely be disqualified.

From Tamil Nadu, big personalities like L Sivaramakrishnan and WV Raman haven’t applied.