Team India coach selection: Phil Simmons pulls out, Ravi Shastri remains firm favourite to retain job
A member of the CAC informed Hindustan Times that Simmons has pulled out of the race before breaking for lunch. Ravi Shastri is expected to make his presentation at around 5 pm while the press conference to announce the name of the coach is slated for 6 pm as of now.
The selection process to pick the next Team India head coach is currently underway at the Board of Control for Cricket in India’s (BCCI) headquarters in Mumbai and in a last minute twist, former West Indies opener Phil Simmons has pulled out of the race. Simmons was part of a group of 6 contestants, including incumbent Ravi Shastri, who were short listed by the Kapil Dev-led Cricket Advisory Committee (CAC) for interviews.
A member of the CAC informed Hindustan Times that Simmons has pulled out of the race before breaking for lunch. No reasons were given for the former West Indies coach’s last minute decision to pull out. Ravi Shastri is expected to make his presentation at around 5 pm while the press conference to announce the name of the coach is slated for 6 pm as of now.
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The likes of former New Zealand coach Mike Hesson and former India fielding coach and player Robin Singh and former India manager Lalchand Rajput appeared in person for the interview while Australian Tom Moody for scheduled for a skype call.
Shastri is currently in his second stint at the helm, having also donned the role of the Team Director earlier. The team reached the semi-finals of the 2015 ICC World and the 2016 ICC WT20 under his watch. Earlier this year India won their maiden Test series in Australia under Shastri’s watch.
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It is understood that Moody had given the best presentation among the candidates in 2017. He knows the Indian boys well from his long experience of coaching in the IPL, for Sunrisers Hyderabad and Kings XI Punjab. He had won the 2016 IPL with the Hyderabad outfit.
Hesson has similar credentials. He has been the coach of New Zealand for close to six years, from 2012 to 2018. Under him, New Zealand reached the World Cup final for the first time in 2015. He also had a stint in the IPL as coach of Kings XI Punjab in 2019. Rajput had done exceptionally well in the stop-gap role of cricket manager in 2007-08, winning the inaugural 2007 World T20 Cup and the triangular one-day series in Australia.