15 players from Virat Kohli's Team India want Ravi Shastri as head coach: reports
Mumbai: Just one day after Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) representatives interviewed candidates for the post of Team India head coach, it has come to light that former cricketer Ravi Shastri has been appointed as the new India coach.
While Shastri was the frontrunner for the job once he sent his application, it was also learnt that as many as 15 Team India cricketers wanted Shastri as India coach.
Shastri, who sent in his CV in the second phase of BCCI’s invitation for applications, had already performed the role of Team India director from 2014 to 2016, helping the Men in Blue through a difficult tour of England, and semi-final finishes in the 2015 ICC World Cup and the 2016 ICC World Twenty20.
While the BCCI-appointed Cricket Advisory Committee (CAC) held back its decision to appoint a coach on Monday, after conducting the interviews, it confirmed that the three members – former Team India greats Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly and VVS Laxman – want to consult captain Virat Kohli before taking the final call.
“We will hold on for time being for the announcement of the coach. We feel there is no hurry at the moment. We need to talk to a few people, especially the captain (Kohli),” said Ganguly.
“Virat will also need to understand how the coaches will operate. We want the best possible thing,” he further said.
As many as five Team India head coach aspirants were interviewed on Sunday – Ravi Shastri, Virender Sehwag, Tom Moody, Lalchand Rajput and Richard Pybus.
However, according to the report in Times of India the members of the Indian cricket team are unanimously in favour of Ravi Shastri, who was pipped to the post by Anil Kumble last year.
In fact, the report also quotes an anonymous source as claiming that the CAC was most impressed by Shastri and Moody’s presentations, and two are said to be the frontrunners to land the job.
Cricketer-turned-commentator Shastri though, reportedly holds the upper hand.
