Mumbai, Former India opener Krishnamachari Srikkanth is the new chairman of the national selectors. He will be joined by a brand new committee with two former Test stars and two others with vast exprience of first class cricket.

World-Cup-winning stalwart Yashpal Sharma has been brought back as selector from the North zone after he was uncermoniously removed when Team Pawar ousted Jagmohan Dalmiya's panel three years ago.

Former India leg-spinner Narendra Hirwani is the other Test player and he is Central's candidate.

The other two are Raja Venkat, a Bengal batsman who narrowly missed playing for India and is the East's man, replacing Orissa's Ranjib Biswal.

Pune's Surendra Bhave, a prolific scorer for Maharshtra, replaces Dilip Vengsarkar, the outgoing chairman of selectors, as West's nominee. Bhave,too, failed to play for India, but he had turned out for India A in the 1990s.

In August, the Indian cricket board's working committee had framed a selection criteria for the selectors. They should have played for India or should have played more than 25 first-class games and should have retired at least 10 years ago.

A selector can not be an office-bearer of the board or any of its affiliated units.

The selectors will now be paid Rs.2.5 million a year as compensation for forgoing their other sources of revenue like television appearances or writing newspaper columns.

Though Hirwani played first-class cricket till as recently as two years ago, he had played his last Test in 1996. The board will have to clarify whether his Test career is taken as the cut-off point while naming him or will modify the norm fixed by the working committee.

The names of the selectors were finalised at an informal meeting of the board members Friday afternoon.

In the last selection panel, all of them had been office-bearers of their respective state associations and continue to be so.

Vengsarkar is a vice president of the Mumbai Cricket Association, Venkatapathy Raju is a vice president of the Hyderabad Cricket Association, Sanjay Jagdale is the secretary of the Madhya Pradesh Cricket Association and Biswal is the president of the the Orissa Cricket Association. Only Bhupinder Singh does not hold any office in the Punjab Cricket Association.

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