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| April 24, 2007 | Tuesday | Rabi-us-Sani 06, 1428 |
India move to pick new coach
NEW DELHI, April 23: Three former Indian captains, including batting legend Sunil Gavaskar, were Monday named as members of a high-powered panel to select Greg Chappell's successor as national coach.
Srinivas Venkataraghavan and Ravi Shastri are the other ex-captains on the seven-member committee headed by Indian cricket chief Sharad Pawar, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) said.
Chappell declined to renew his two-year term for ‘family and personal reasons’ after India crashed out in the first round of the World Cup in the Caribbean.
Shastri was named interim coach-manager for next month's tour of Bangladesh, but he declined to continue after that, citing media commitments.
India must find a new man before the tour of England in July, with reports suggesting that outgoing Bangladesh coach Dav Whatmore and Sri Lanka's Australian coach Tom Moody are serious contenders.
Gavaskar, Venkataraghavan and Shastri were members of the panel that picked Chappell as coach in May 2005.
Gavaskar said in his syndicated newspaper column last weekend that appointing Chappell had not served the team's purpose.
“When Chappell took over, there was optimism all around that Indian cricket would be ready to challenge Australia for the title of the best team in the world,” Gavaskar wrote.
“Instead, at the end of his tenure, Indian cricket is down in the dumps with a first-round exit in the World Cup, and is as fractured and divided as seldom before.
“Despite all this, and him (Chappell) saying in an interview that the BCCI is run like Zimbabwe, the BCCI is reportedly offering him a place as a consultant to the National Cricket Academy.
“It's never easy sacking somebody, however incapable and inefficient, but to give another job which deals with the future of Indian cricket, makes one wonder if we will ever get out of the inferiority complex syndrome.”
Gavaskar also took a dig at reports that Chappell was going to head the Australian Cricket Academy.
“If true, then it could be the best thing that has happened for world cricket,” the former Indian opener wrote. “Now even Ireland have a chance of beating Australia sooner (rather) than later.”
BCCI secretary Niranjan Shah, treasurer N. Srinivasan and joint secretary Mohinder Pandove were the others named on the new panel to pick the coach.—AFP
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