BCCI Shortlist Six Candidates Alongside Ravi Shastri for India Men’s Team Head Coach

The BCCI have shortlisted six candidates for senior India Head Coach post, including the current head coach Ravi Shastri, whose tenure will end soon. The selected candidates will be interviewed on Friday, August 16 in Mumbai. The six candidates are Mike Hesson, Tom Moody, Phil Simmons, Lalchand Rajput, Robin Singh and Ravi Shastri. However, Ravi Shastri and the other three foreign candidates will give the interview over Skype.

While Hesson is the former New Zealand coach, Moody was a part of Sri Lanka team. Former West Indies all-rounder Simmons was Afghanistan coach whereas Lalchand Rajput was India team manager and Robin Singh was the fielding coach of India Robin Singh was in fact the fielding coach when India won the first-ever World T20 title in 2007 under Mahendra Singh Dhoni.

The final decision will be taken by the three-member Cricket Advisory Committee (CAC), led by former India captain Kapil Dev, featuring Anshuman Gaekwad and Shantha Rangaswamy. The CAC was appointed by the Supreme Court-appointed Committee of Administrators (CoA).

“The board have finalised a list of six names based on their experience and qualifications for the post. All the six interviews will be held in Mumbai with different time slots for all the six candidates. The interviews will begin in morning and will go on till 5:30pm in the evening on August 16,” a senior official of BCCI informed CricketNext on Monday (August 12).

“Shastri is the automatic entry into this process like the rest of the support staff. The CAC will probably rank all the candidates, so BCCI can choose the final candidate on the basis of availability and other conditions. The final decision on how many names will finally be offered to BCCI will be decided by the CAC on the day of the interview,” the official further added.

“In spite of all their achievements, none of these names are heavyweight competition to Shastri at the moment. However, the CAC might feel differently because all of them have top level coaching experience and fulfill all the stringent criterion that BCCI have put in place for this job,” the BCCI official concluded.

Although Rajput has experience with the Afghanistan and Zimbabwe team, he doesn’t have the experience of coaching a top Test nation. Hesson recently stepped down from his position as Kings XI Punjab manager. He has a successful coaching career with New Zealand for six years. Even Tom Moody also parted ways from Sunrisers Hyderabad in IPL.

BCCI is expected to announce the name of the India head coach soon after CAC picks the suitable candidate for the post. However, the support staff will be chosen by the senior men’s selection committee, leading by chairman MSK Prasad. But there was no news if the interviews for support staff will take place on Friday as well or not.