Krishnamachari Srikkanth is all set to be appointed chairman of national selectors at the BCCI AGM on Saturday.

The former India skipper and swashbuckling opener will take over the reins from former team mate Dilip Vengsarkar at the two-day AGM.

Along with Srikkanth's appointment, the senior selection panel of the Indian Cricket Board is also poised to undergo a complete overhaul.

Chennai-born Srikkanth (South Zone) could have as co-selectors his former India teammate Yashpal Sharma (North), former Test leg-spinner Narendra Hirwani (Central), Surendra Bhave (West) and Raja Venkat (East), BCCI sources said.

This is a complete change from the current selection panel comprising Vengsarkar (West), Venkatapathy Raju (South), Ranjib Biswal (East), Sanjay Jagdale (Central) and Bhupinder Singh Sr (North).

The BCCI's Working Committee, at its last sitting, had decided that no office bearer of the Board or any of its affiliated units can become a selector in future.

This decision, expected to be passed at the AGM, will rule out Vengsarkar, Raju and Biswal who are office bearers of their respective cricket associations -- Mumbai, Hyderabad and Orissa -- respectively.

Vengsarkar and Raju are Vice-President's, while Biswal is the President of their respective units.

All of them were eligible to be appointed as paid selectors as they were still to complete four years of their tenure.

But the Working Committee decision barring office bearers from becoming selectors rules them out.
Jagdale, who too is an office bearer of the MP Association, has already completed his term of four years as selector.

Bhupinder Sr has neither completed his four-year term nor is an office bearer in the Punjab CA, to which he belongs, but yet is all set to give way to Yashpal.

In case Hirwani gets the nod it would mean that the AGM did not give the green signal to another ruling of the WC that a senior selector should have retired 10 years prior to taking up the selector's post.

He stopped playing first class cricket only four years ago.

While Srikkanth, Yashpal and Hirwani have played Test cricket, Bhave and Raja Venkat have played only first class cricket.

The members of the new senior selection panel, who would be appointed and not elected, are to get Rs 25 lakh as honorarium with the BCCI having decided to introduce the system of paid selectors from the 2008-09 season.