Shantha Rangaswamy Resigns From Cricket Advisory Committee, Indian Cricketers Association After Being Served Conflict of Interest Notice

The 65-year-old sent her resignation letter to the Committee of Administrators (CoA) and the Board's CEO, Rahul Johri via email in the early hours on Sunday.

Former India women’s team skipper Shantha Rangaswamy is the first casualty in the Conflict of Interest case which has lately occupied all the headlines in Indian cricketing fraternity. Rangaswamy has stepped down from her position as a member of the Cricket Advisory Committee (CAC) and director of the Indian Cricketers Association (ICA) after being served a Conflict of Interest notice by BCCI Ethics Officer DK Jain.

Rangaswamy was a member of the CAC along with Kapil Dev and Anshuman Gaekwad, who was involved in the selection of Team India head coach Ravi Shastri. The 65-year-old sent her resignation letter to the Committee of Administrators (CoA) and the Board’s CEO, Rahul Johri via email in the early hours on Sunday.

“I have other plans so have decided to move on. The CAC was anyway meeting once in a year or one in two years so I did not understand the conflict,” Rangaswamy told PTI.

“It was an honour to be on the CAC committee. It will be tough to find suitable former cricketers for any administrative role in the current scenario (conflict of interest). The ICA I would have resigned anyway before the elections were held. So it was a matter of time,” she added.

Earlier, the BCCI Ethics Officer had sent a notice to CAC, asking the former cricketers who picked the current India coach to respond by October 10 to the Conflict of Interest allegations levelled against them. Rangaswamy is alleged to be conflicted because of her multiple role with the CAC and ICA.

MPCA life member Sanjiv Gupta had filed the complaint against the trio who picked Ravi Shastri as the head coach in August. As per the BCCI constitution, no individual can hold more than one post at the same time.

In the complaint, Gupta has claimed that the CAC members don multiple cricketing roles. He wrote that 1983 World Cup-winning captain Kapil is conflicted as he is a commentator, owner of a floodlight company, member of Indian Cricketers Association, besides his CAC role.

The CAC had also picked the women’s head coach W V Raman in December but at that time it was an ad-hoc committee.