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The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) finally broke their silence and announced Ravi Shastri as the Indian team head coach.
The role is not a new one for Shastri, who held the position of ‘team director’ of the national side from 2014 until 2016. This appointment in a way is good for Indian cricket as Shastri has already worked with Virat Kohli in the past and seemed to have got along well with the captain.
Ravi Shastri himself is an aggressive individual, and it will be interesting to see the team dynamics when he takes over as the head coach.
The other interesting appointment came in the way of Rahul Dravid as the team batting consultant. This position has been announced with the caveat that he will be the batting consultant for the Indian team only for the overseas Test matches.
This is really a strange appointment. Even though it will be a great learning experience for the players to learn from a legend like Rahul Dravid, the limitation in his role might hamper his impact.
The fact that Rahul Dravid is also the coach of the India A and the under-19 teams makes you wonder as to why he has been offered the role of the batting consultant of the national team as well.
Zaheer Khan has been appointed as the bowling coach, which is also an interesting selection. Zaheer does not have any coaching pedigree and hasn’t done any coaching at the highest level. He did mentor the bowlers while playing for India and for his IPL side, but coaching a national side is completely a different ball game.
It will be interesting to see how Zaheer handles this role and how the bowlers respond to him as coach. Zaheer is still an active player and played this season for Delhi Daredevils, so it will be interesting to see if he will continue as a player for his IPL side next season.
So finally the search for the national coach has come to an end with this appointment. The selection of Shastri seems to have been made on the premise of his working relationship with Virat Kohli in the past. The exit of Anil Kumble and the way it happened might have been the reason for this decision, as there were coaches with better pedigree competing with Ravi Shastri.
The Cricket Advisory Committee, comprising Sourav Ganguly, Sachin Tendulkar and VVS Laxman, were not happy the way the exit of Kumble was handled, and that might have been the reason for this quick announcement by BCCI.
I feel in the current scenario this was probably the right decision for the team. This appointment has ended the two-month controversy, and hopefully the team can now concentrate on the Sri Lankan tour which starts on 26 July.
Ravi Shastri, Rahul Dravid and Zaheer Khan will start their coaching stints in Sri Lanka and would be hoping to get off to a winning start in their first assignment.
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