Ending weeks of speculations, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) on Tuesday announced Ravi Shastri as the new coach of the Indian cricket team. Shastri wins five-way battle to grab the post until 2019 Cricket World Cup.
Mumbai: Former skipper Ravi Shastri has been named as the new coach of the Indian cricket team.
It is surely a huge responsibility to take on, given Team India's scintillating run on home turf under Kumble, in the last one year, but Shastri does have the backing not only from the skipper (as reported earlier), but also from few other former greats.
Shastri, 55, was among five high-profile candidates interviewed on Monday for the post left vacant by ex-Test captain Anil Kumble, who resigned amid difficulties over his relationship with skipper Virat Kohli which he described as "untenable".
An advisory committee of Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly and VVS Laxman was tasked with selecting the new coach to head the world's number-one ranked Test team.
The new head coach, Ravi Shastri, has been appointed until the next ICC World Cup, scheduled in 2019 in England.
CAC, on Monday, had said that they’re postponing the announcement for a few days as they need to talk to skipper Virat Kohli.
The sources, however, told Times Now earlier in the day, that the Supreme Court appointed Committee of Administrators (CoA) has asked BCCI to announce the new coach today (July 11).
Shastri, who has represented India in 80 Tests and 150 One-Day Internationals between 1981 and 1992, had initially not applied for the post but when the BCCI extended the deadline for acceptance of applications till July 9, the former skipper jumped into the fray and suddenly became the hot favourite.
Shastri also served as team director in 2015 under whom Kohli and company reached a high level of success - which included winning the Asia Cup.
Last year though, Shastri was ignored for the post of head coach after his tenure of team director ended after the Cricket Advisory Council (CAC) which comprises of legends Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly and VVS Laxman picked Anil Kumble as coach.
Ganguly favoured Kumble ahead of Shastri for the post and that caused a highly publicised rift between the two of them.
But the BCCI’s Kumble experiment failed after Captain Kohli and Kumble had a fallout post the ICC Champions Trophy final which led to Kumble resigning.
With Shastri back in the Indian dressing room, team India will hope that their fortunes change for the better after losing in the final of the Champions Trophy and a poor show in the West Indies.
