As per reports the BCCI is looking to fill a new coaching vacancy in the Indian Test team given their rather unfortunate run of performances lately.
The position of the batting coach is one that is being contemplated very seriously as the various stakeholders among the board and team management believe it imperative to ‘strengthen’ the support staff of Gautam Gambhir.
The report went on to add that it would be discussed in the BCCI’s review meeting held on January 11 for the Border-Gavaskar Trophy. However, the report added that it was uncertain if the BCCI would act on these ideas and go ahead with such an appointment.
The core group of the Indian coaching staff includes Gambhir (head coach), Morne Morkel (bowling coach), assistant coach Abhishek Nayar, assistant coach Ryan ten Doeschate, and fielding coach T Dilip. Only Dilip remained from the erstwhile setup.
Morkel has worked with Gambhir at Lucknow Super Giants while Nayar and ten Doeschate were the batting and fielding coaches, respectively, under the former Indian captain when he was with Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) last year. All three of them were said to be Gambhir’s first choice once he was made the head coach.
The job of batting coach has been questioned quite a lot in Tests. India has won three out of ten in red-ball internationals.
Earlier, they were also hammered by New Zealand at home when their batters were not as good as their Kiwi counterparts against spin before losing 1-3 in Australia.
In Australia, criticism doubled because Virat Kohli kept having issues playing against anything that pitched outside his off-stump and some other batters were just muddling over their strategies.
“Where was the support staff? Was it on the batting coach’s wise advice?” former India captain Sunil Gavaskar told Star Sports during the series. “When India were set 46 to chase, New Zealand came out the winner. In the remaining matches, they lost the series because they simply did not apply themselves hard,” he said. There was no temperament in the batting order. Even in Australia, India were short on the backbone among their batsmen.
“Inquiries must go: poor brothers, what were you doing? Why no improvement? You couldn’t tell me the bowling was unplayable in both series, and that our batters could not stand face to it. Such is the case, that even the best can’t face unplayable bowling. But it was not the case. Tell me, what have you done?” he questioned.
India will now face England in their next Test assignment scheduled in June.