The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) is in a proactive mode in the World Cup year and has already initiated planning for the 50-over tournament to be held later this year. The January 1 review meeting laid the foundation for the road ahead and now the focus is likely to shift towards the head coach.
Current coach Rahul Dravid’s contract is till the 2023 World Cup and should he not consider an extension, News18 Cricketnext has reliably learnt that the Indian cricket board is looking at VVS Laxman, Head of Cricket at the NCA, as the replacement.
The 48-year-old, who was also in the mix when Dravid was appointed coach in November 2021, is on top of the list and has already been on coaching assignments with the Indian team in Dravid’s absence. He was with the team for the 2022 edition of the Asia Cup when Dravid was down with COVID-19 and has also travelled for various bilateral series in the past.
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In his current assignment, Laxman is heading operations at the NCA and grooming the next-gen, much like Dravid did before he was appointed head coach of the senior team.
Laxman has travelled with the India U-19 team for the 2022 World Cup too and played a very proactive role with the young bunch during their successful campaign.
Specialist coach for T20?
While Hardik Pandya taking over as T20 captain is all but certain, and Rohit Sharma likely to continue as the Test and ODI captain, split coaching – separate specialist coach for T20I – is not likely to happen anytime soon.
“Has that happened in Indian cricket before?…” a senior BCCI official had said when asked about the possibility of split coaching being injected into the set-up.
T20 is emerging as a different beast in the cricket ecosystem and demands of the format call for a different and specialist approach. Hardik as captain is a step in the right direction but more measures are needed to cater to the demands of the unforgiving format.
News18 Cricketnext had argued earlier why the regular state-fed model of selection is not enough for T20 and why need of the hour is to ditch the archaic approach to selection and take a leaf out of IPL playbook. The franchise model of selection which primarily focusses on scouting, extensive camps and simulation-based trials.
There’s very little coaching which is required at the T20 level and it’s more about having a person who can align the troops in the right direction – the man-manager kind of role which Ravi Shastri played to perfection during his tenure as head coach of the Indian cricket team.
Dravid’s tenure
Ever since taking over from Shastri, Dravid has had an indifferent run as coach of the Indian cricket team. The period, November 2021 onwards, saw the Indian team put up a disappointing show in successive T20 World Cups and the 2022 Asia Cup in between. The period also saw the Virat Kohli captaincy episode unfold the way it did.
While the white-ball didn’t paint a good picture, there weren’t many challenging away red-ball assignments, unlike his predecessor Shastri. The biggest red-ball Test yet under Dravid will be in the upcoming home Border-Gavaskar Trophy vs Australia. A 3-1 scoreline in the four-Test series will seal the World Test Championship final berth for the Rohit Sharma-led unit but it’s going to be a challenging series against a formidable Australian side.
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The next two years are packed for India men’s team and feature a potential World Test Championship final, 2023 ODI World Cup and then 2024 T20 World Cup. In a course correction effort, the issues of player availability, workload management and fitness parameters were discussed at length during the BCCI review meeting along with the roadmap to the ICC Cricket World Cup 2023.
The meeting was attended by BCCI president Roger Binny, secretary Jay Shah, Rohit, Dravid, Laxman and chairman of previous selection committee Chetan Sharma.
Key recommendations
- The emerging players will have to play a substantial domestic season to be eligible for selection to the national team.
- The Yo-Yo Test and Dexa will now be part of selection criteria and implemented in the customized roadmaps of the central pool of players.
- Keeping in mind the Men’s FTP and preparations for ICC CWC 2023, the NCA will work in tandem with the IPL Franchisee to monitor the targeted Indian players participating in the IPL 2023.
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