Team India manager's job on the line

Coach of off-spinner R Ashwin and currently Team India's administrative manager on 45-day extension, Sunil Subramaniam, could lose his current position after being reported by Indian High Commission officials for alleged misbehaviour during the ongoing tour of West Indies.

As a result, the Board of Control for Cricket in India's (BCCI) top brass has understandably made up their mind to not consider his candidature during the next round of interviews for his extension.

It is important to mention here that Subramaniam, who was given extension along with head coach Ravi Shastri before the Caribbean series, has been reprimanded by the board for his alleged misbehaviour with senior officials of Indian High Commission based in Guyana and Trinidad & Tobago.

It all happened when Team India was supposed to shoot an advertisement on 'Water Conservation' for the government back home. As was required, BCCI communicated to the two High Commissions there in Caribbean Island that Subramaniam is the point person in this regard.

A former Tamil Nadu left-arm spinner who later represented Assam, Subramaniam was appointed team's administrative manager for two years in 2017.

"As was the directives, Subramaniam never cooperated with the senior officials. Instead, we have been told that his reply was rude and unacceptable. 'Don't flood me with messages' was how he replied to the govt officials who were only carrying out the govt's directive," a senior BCCI official narrated the incident on Tuesday.

As it should have been in these kind of matters, this senior bureaucrat reported the entire episode to the respected ministry in Delhi. And then it was conveyed to the Supreme Court-appointed Committee of Administrators (COA) chief Vinod Rai.

Immediately, BCCI CEO Rahul Johri and his team stepped in to get in touch with the concerned officials there to make sure the damage is minimised.

It is, however, not clear right now whether Subramaniam could be asked to hand over charge to logistics manager Hrishikesh Upadhyay or may be allowed to carry on his duties till the end of tour, September 3.

The shoot, which was delayed due to these reasons, has reportedly been shot now in Port of Spain on Tuesday featuring skipper Virat Kohli and his deputy Rohit Sharma.

Interestingly, it was the first time in BCCI's history that a post of team manager was advertised formally in 2017 soon after Supreme Court appointed COA. Before this, the board used to appoint the team manager on tour-to-tour basis.

Subramaniam extension was seen as almost sure after he got several positive reports from coach Shastri during his stint with the team.