New Delhi: Former India captain Rahul Dravid has emerged as the biggest contender to be India’s new chief coach – a position that is lying vacant since Duncan Fletcher’s ouster after 2015 World Cup. Since then, Ravi Shastri, another former India captain, was playing the role in the capacity of Team Director but with India’s exit from the World T20, his tenure also got over.
According to a report in the Times of India, the BCCI’s advisory committee, comprising Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly and VVS Laxman, is in favour of appointing Dravid as chief coach. Dravid is in charge of India A and India Under-19 squads for almost a year now. The advisory committee approached Dravid to know if he was interested in the job.
While the former India No. 3 batsman has agreed to give the proposal a serious thought, he has asked for some time to think. “Rahul has said he will give it a thought,“ a source in the know of developments was quoted as saying in the report.
If Dravid agrees to the proposal, he may be offered a long-term contract, which may stretch to the 2019 ICC World Cup in England.
Meanwhile, there is ambiguity over Ravi Shastri's involvement with Team India going forward. Even though Shastri wants to continue to work with the team, he is not being considered for the role of the head coach.
The advisory committee will meet on Tuesday to discuss the issue of the chief coach.
Dravid is presently busy being the mentor of the Indian Premier League (IPL) franchise Delhi Daredevils. Before this he led the India Under-19 team to the World Cup final last month.
Indian team is scheduled to play 18 Test matches between June 2016 and March 2017. It makes Dravid – a veteran of the game with 164 Test matches and 344 ODIs behind him – all the more important for the board right now.
The board had earlier contacted former Australia batsman Michael Hussey to take up the challenge but the arrangement didn’t work out.
Also, the BCCI is all set to extend the contracts of assistant coach Sanjay Bangar, bowling coach Bharat Arun and fielding coach R Sridhar.