Gautam Gambhir, former Indian opener who played a leading role in their World Cup wins of 2007 and 2011 is tipped to replace Rahul Dravid as the new coach for the Indian men’s cricket team. The Cricket Advisory Committee (CAC) of BCCI that interviewed them via Zoom on Tuesday interviewed Gambhir and WV Raman, former India openers, ex-Lady’s Women Coach also.
A formal announcement from BCCI regarding Gambhir taking over as the head coach will be made either towards close of T20 world cup or just after it. He will be in charge for all the three formats of the game. Gambhir will begin his term at July 2024 and finish it off in December 2027 after 50-over World Cup by that year.
The interview with Gambhir began at noon while that for Raman started at 12.45 pm and lasted for half an hour. It is unclear if there would be any other interviews today.
After Dravid expressed his inability to continue as India head coach beyond his extended term following last year’s ODI World Cup which was held in India after sixth months from the end of his first contract at global event, the BCCI invited applications on its website.
Application deadline was May 27th which is one day after IPL finals were played with Gambhir being currently acting as mentor to Kolkata Knight Riders wining this year’s contest becoming champions thus he will obviously relinquish this role upon being appointed as a national coach. Like before, memory serves correctly; it was earlier said that BCCI would grant him power to choose support staffs
TOI has learnt that Dravid is already under consideration by few IPL teams who are mulling over having him as their team director. The CAC consists of Ashok Malhotra, Jatin Paranjape and Sulakshana Naik-who are all ex-cricketers of India.
“Gambhir was in Delhi and appeared for the interview on Zoom. CAC head Ashok Malhotra is doing commentary in Punjab T20 League and attended via zoom, but Paranjape and Naik were at the BCCI HQ in Mumbai. The interview was a mere formality as far as BCCI bosses are concerned because they are sure that he is just the right man be their coach who can take some hard calls to be made henceforth for Indian cricket.” – Source from TOI.
There had been speculation that Gambhir would take up a significant role within Indian cricket ever since he quit “active politics” on March 2nd, just before BJP released its list of candidates for the 2024 Lok Sabha polls. And this year’s IPL win by KKR after they finished seventh in 2023 convinced decision-makers behind Indian cricket that Gambhir is right man for the task despite him not having coached any international or even domestic side before. In previous years, this forty-two-year-old used to act as Lucknow Super Giants mentor where he led them into playoffs during both seasons.
In fact, Raman himself was batting coach when Gambhir captained KKR to IPL titles in 2012 and 2014 (he had also been with them throughout his tenure). For seven seasons, he happened to be their captain at different times.
Because of this, the BCCI looked like it was leaning towards hiring an Indian coach for this important role and Jay Shah, the secretary of the board also said that they have not yet spoken to any Australian ex-cricketer about this position during a recent conversation. “It would be wonderful for the Indian cricket,” one team owner informed TOI when asked of Gambhir’s prospective appointment as India coach. Therefore, people could not stop speculating on Gambhir becoming India’s head coach after having a long talk with BCCI secretary Jay Shah in Chennai on May 26 immediately upon termination of IPL 2021.
A NEW SELECTOR WILL SOON BE APPOINTED
CAC is expected to commence interviews this week searching for selectors from the North Zone who will replace Salil Ankola on selection committee. In addition, both Ankola and chief selector Ajit Agarkar are from West Zone. He had replaced Chetan Sharma in June last year following which he was appointed July last year to replace Chetan Sharma who stepped down due to a sting operation. On his part, Ankola was already attached to the selection panel at that time before Agarkar took over as its head.
