Indian Coach Job: Ravi Shastri Joins The Cohort Of Potential Applicants Through A Formal Application

The hunt for the next Team India coach has been on a seesaw ride these days. Initially the quest was revolving around five candidates, Virender Sehwag, Tom Moody, Venkatesh Prasad, Richard Pybus, Dodda Ganesh and Lalchand Rajput. But on Monday, another name has emerged in this cohort, Ravi Shastri made himself the front runner in this head to head context through submitting his application for the position of the Indian cricket team’s head coach ahead of the July 9 deadline.

The interviews are yet to be conducted by the Cricket Advisory Committee (CAC) comprising of Sourav Ganguly, VVS Laxman and Sachin Tendulkar. Following Shastri’s proposal another application came into being with the reference of former West Indies opener Phil Simmons, who has also coached the Caribbean team apart from Ireland and Afghanistan. “Yes, Ravi has applied and so has Phil Simmons,” a BCCI official confirmed the development.

Shastri has an upper hand among the other applicants who have thrown their hats in the ring as he served the Indian Cricket team as a director from August 2014 to June 2016 and by doing so he already fabricated a healthy rapport along with the players including the skipper Virat Kohli.

The denouement is yet to be floured but before that the major strings are tied in the hands of CAC who will consider Shastri’s case pondering upon Sourav Ganguly’s leaning approach towards Kumble over the former Indian all rounder last year while selecting India’s coach.

Heading straight towards a final name, BCCI has to go through considering the feats achieved by Indian team during Kumble’s Coaching era such like winning the Test series against the West Indies, Australia, England, New Zealand and Bangladesh before reaching the Champions Trophy final last month. But we must nor overlook the acerbic exit Kumble faced due to having an inimical accord with the skipper Kohli.

On the other end Shastri’s tenure had been a positive shine as compare to Kumble’s tenure. The former’s coaching era has witnessed India’s triumph in limited overs away series against England in 2014, journey to the semi-finals of the World Cup and World T20 (2015 and 2016 respectively), victory in away Test series against Sri Lanka, home series against South Africa and T20 away series against Australia.

Hence juxtaposing the two different displays of Indian performances in the last few years, the new coach would be painted in the picture. Till the moment its done we only have the growing conjectures to chew over.