New Delhi, Aug. 18: The Delhi and Districts Cricket Association is on tenterhooks at the moment. Skipper Virender Sehwag’s threat to pull out of the state team ahead of the Ranji Trophy season has hit home. Now with fellow opener Gautam Gambhir and pacers Ishant Sharma and Ashish Nehra coming out in support of Sehwag, the threat of a mass exodus looms large over DDCA.

The DDCA, however, has sprung into action to address Sehwag and other Delhi players’ concerns. Vibhakar Shastri, one of the three government nominees appointed by the sports ministry to oversee the working of the DDCA, has already had meetings with association president Arun Jaitley and they are focused on holding onto Sehwag at all costs.

"Sehwag, Gambhir, Ishant and Nehra are some of the iconic players of Delhi. In fact, Sehwag is an iconic player on the world stage as well. We all agree in the DDCA that we cannot let players like them slip away from the state," Shastri told this newspaper on Tuesday.

"I had a long chat with Jaitley and we’ll look at Sehwag’s concerns about the sports committee. In fact, we were looking at immediately restructuring the selection committee but with the impending elections it was not possible," he added.

The elections for the DDCA sports committee will take place on August 20 and Shastri promised that there will be some major changes sooner rather than later.

Shastri, grandson of former India Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri, said one of his roles as the nominee is to ensure that meritorious players are selected to play for Delhi.

"It is part of my duty to ensure that deserving players get the chance to play for Delhi. To ensure that we’ll try to get more former India players as part of the selection committee in Delhi. There are lots of Delhi players who have played for the country at the highest level and DDCA can benefit a lot from their experience," Shastri said.

Chetan Chauhan, the DDCA vice-president and chairman of the selection committee, also backed this move. "Delhi has a lot of influential people, who put pressure on the selectors to choose their wards. The current selection committee consists of renowned first-class cricketers but if there is a proposal to get former India players on the selection panel I’ll completely back this move," Chauhan said.

On Sehwag’s threat to quit Delhi, the former India opener said, "There are problems in DDCA which need to be sorted out, but I am sure everything will be resolved.

"We don’t want to lose top class players like Sehwag."

Meanwhile, Shastri said that the DDCA was awaiting Sehwag’s return from Bengaluru to sort out his concerns.

"Sehwag will meet Jaitley and general secretary S.P. Bansal and I’ll also be present to oversee the meeting. All the necessary changes will be made for the betterment of Delhi cricket," he said.