NEW DELHI, May 19: India on Thursday began interviews for the next cricket coach amid unprecedented media frenzy on John Wright’s likely successor to one of the sport’s most high-profile and demanding jobs. The four candidates — Australians Greg Chappell and Tom Moody, India’s Mohinder Amarnath and Desmond Haynes of the West Indies — will appear separately before a high-powered selection panel of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) here.

The selection panel comprises former captains Sunil Gavaskar, Ravi Shastri and Srinivas Venkataraghavan, current BCCI president Ranbir Singh Mahendra, secretary Karunakaran Nair and former chief Jagmohan Dalmiya.

The BCCI has not set a date for naming the new coach since the man nominated by the selection panel will have to be approved by the BCCI’s decision-making working committee.

Television cameras and journalists cramped the venue. Some even followed Chappell, Moody and Haynes from the moment they stepped out of the airport early on Thursday to keep their appointment with the BCCI top brass.

Chappell, the former Australian captain and batting great, and Moody, World Cup winner in 1987 and 1999 and currently director of cricket with English county Worcestershire, are considered the favourites by the media.

But Amarnath, man of the series during India’s World Cup triumph in 1983, and Haynes, whose Caribbean connection ahead of the next World Cup there in 2007 is crucial, have their backers within the selection panel.

Both Chappell and Moody are also on Sri Lanka’s short-list for a successor to compatriot John Dyson and may fly to Colombo later in the week to meet officials of Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC).

New Zealander Wright, who took over as India’s first foreign coach in 2000, quit after the home series against Pakistan in April to devote more time to his two children.

India’s next international assignment is in August when they travel to Sri Lanka for a triangular one-day tournament, also featuring the West Indies.—AFP