Nayan Mongia, Nilesh Kulkarni, Sameer Dighe after the selectors’ job

Following BCCI’s first-ever advertisement to appoint national selectors for India’s senior, junior and women's teams, former Indian cricketers Nayan Mongia, Sameer Dighe and Nilesh Kulkarni have applied for the post.

BCCI has received huge responses from these three former Indian internationals, as well as former Indian seamer Abey Kuruvilla.

The responses also come from domestic crickets such as Shishir Hattangadi, Shantanu Sugwekar, Robin Singh and Pritam Gandhe. As reported by The Times of India, ex-seamer Venkatesh Prasad has also applied for the post.

As per the guidelines, candidates applying for the selectors’ job will need to fulfil certain criterion. The candidate needs to be aged less than 60 and he cannot be linked with any IPL franchise, Cricket academy or media outlet.

As advertised by BCCI, the deadline to apply for the post was 5pm IST Wednesday.

Nayan Mongia, former Indian stumper who played 40 Tests and 140 ODIs for India has been working with Baroda Cricket Association (BCA) as a senior and junior selector for four years.

"I am very keen to become a national selector," said the 46-year-old to The Times of India.

"Having played cricket for Mumbai and India, I feel it's time to give back to the sport which has helped me build my professional career first in cricket, and later, in sports management education," said Nilesh Kulkarni.

Kulkarni, a former left-arm spinner has played three tests and 10 ODIs for India.

Sameer Dighe, the former Tripura Ranji team coach was capped in six tests and 23 ODIs for India. He has worked as a selector for Mumbai and worked at the National Cricket Academy (NCA) for five years.

The new selection panel, appointed by the BCCI might have to choose the ODI team for the upcoming New Zealand series. The test squad has already been picked by the predecessors the new selection panel, led by Sandip Patil.

The candidates will be interviewed by Sourav Ganguly, Sachin Tendulkar, and VVS Laxman but the final decision regarding the appointment will be taken by the top tier of the Board and the president Anurag Thakur himself.

The Indian cricket team, meanwhile, plays New Zealand in the home series and kick off the series with a test match at Kanpur on 22^nd September, followed by tests in Kolkata and Indore.