Ravi Shastri has been re-appointed as the Head Coach of the Indian Cricket Team and what made hi the prime choice was his familiarity with the players and understanding of the team. The three-member Cricket Advisory Committee (CAC) comprising of Kapil Dev, Anshuman Gaekwad and Shantha Rangaswamy marked each individual separately. While Shastri got the job, Mike Hesson came second and Tom Moody came third.

“It took us the whole day, we had a gap of roughly three hours because we were waiting for two people from the West Indies to give the interview. The time zone was totally different,” Kapil said at the press conference.

“One was Australia (Tom Moody) and that is why we needed so much time. The system was very simple. We had our own marking. I did not ask him or her (CAC co-members) what marks we were giving (to each candidate).

“We all unanimously decided after doing all the accounts and number which took us a little bit of time, No. 3 is Tom Moody. No. 2 is Mike Hesson from New Zealand. He is very intelligent and good young boy. And No. 1 is Ravi Shastri which you all were expecting,” Kapil said.

Asked what made them re-elect Shastri who is now with the team in the West Indies, Kapil said: “I felt he has more skill of communication. They may not have felt the same way. We did not discuss. We were given mark sheets and we put our numbers listening to them and their presentation. We all three felt today we became much more intelligent before we went to the room. We learnt so much how much hard work they put in in those presentations.”

Kapil stressed that captain Virat Kohli was not consulted while selecting the coach. “Captain was not consulted, if he was taken into account all team members would have to be taken into account. We did not ask anyone. We did not have the advantage.”