India retain shastri
Pic- BCCI
|| CF Correspondent ||
India on Friday retained Ravi Shastri as the head coach of senior men’s cricket team up to 2021, leaving the door open for Bangladesh to renegotiate with former New Zealand coach Mike Hesson for the post.
Hesson, the first choice candidate of Bangladesh to replace Steve Rhodes, was short-listed by India, along with incumbent Shastri, former Australian cricketer Tom Moody, former Indian players Lalchand Rajput and Robin Singh.
An advisory committee of Board of Control for Cricket in India, comprising cricket great Kapil Dev, former cricketer Anshuman Gaekwad and ex-women’s captain Shanta Rangaswamy, conducted interviews for the post on Friday and unanimously agreed to retain Shastri .
A BCCI statement, following the interviews, confirmed Hesson came just behind Shastri in the pecking order, which appeared to have relived his other potential suitors Bangladesh and Pakistan, with the latter is also now without a coach having shown the door to South African Mickey Arthur.
Shashtri’s term will run till 2021, the Board of Control for Cricket in India announced on Friday, 16 August.
Shastri was one of the six shortlisted candidates interviewed for the position by a three-member panel. Others who had applied for the position were former India internationals Robin Singh, who had a coaching role with Mumbai Indians, and Lalchand Rajput, who was in charge at Zimbabwe and Afghanistan, and was manager when India won the ICC World T20 2007; Mike Hesson, the former New Zealand coach who guided them to the ICC Men's Cricket World Cup 2015 final; Tom Moody, the former Sri Lanka and Sunrisers Hyderabad coach; and Phil Simmons, who was coach when West Indies won the ICC World T20 2016 title, and also saw Ireland and Afghanistan take a step up.
Shastri's association with the team in a coaching capacity began when he was appointed team director in 2014, following the team's disappointing tour of England. He held the role till 2016, and returned in 2017 as coach after Anil Kumble stepped down. Since then, he has formed a firm partnership with Virat Kohli, overseeing a historic Test series win in Australia and India's first bilateral ODI series win in South Africa. India remain No.1 on the MRF Tyres ICC Test Team Rankings.
With his tenure set to run out after the ICC Men's Cricket World Cup 2019, where India crashed out in the semi-final, the BCCI called for fresh applications, where Shastri's candidature was automatically considered. The Supreme Court-appointed Committee of Administrators overseeing the BCCI named a three-member panel comprising former captains Kapil Dev, Anshuman Gaekwad and Shantha Rangaswamy as responsible for interviewing the candidates and choosing the coach.
Shastri gave his interview via teleconference from the West Indies, where the team are on tour. He was granted an extension after the World Cup to accompany the team till the end of the Caribbean tour.
