Former India captain Anil Kumble has been appointed coach of the national side for one year, the BCCI announced. His first assignment will be India's four-Test tour of the West Indies. The question of who would take over as India coach has been a talking point since Ravi Shastri's tenure as team director ended after the World T20. Some of the uncertainty was addressed when Anurag Thakur, after his appointment as BCCI president, said the vacancy would be filled before the Tests in the Caribbean.
The BCCI put out an advertisement for a new coach in the first week of June and received 57 applications, including Kumble's. However, it appears he was not among the 21 names shortlisted by the BCCI secretary Ajay Shirke's office. The Cricket Advisory Committee, comprising Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly and VVS Laxman, assigned to pick India's next coach asked for Kumble's name to be included, at which point he became an instant favourite.
The committee interviewed Kumble and a handful of other candidates in Kolkata and made their recommendations to the BCCI. Thakur, along with Shirke, made the final call. "The CAC recommended a few names to the BCCI. After discussions with various stakeholders, we have taken the final call that for next one year Anil Kumble will be the head coach." Thakur said at a media briefing in Dharamsala.
The BCCI offered Kumble a one-year term to help him acclimatise to the job better and to give themselves the cushion to reassess if needed. When the final call came, there were three men left standing in a race that had begun with 57 candidates. There was Ravi Shastri, who had served as Team India's director for 18 months till the World T20, and Australian Tom Moody, whose glittering resume includes a coaching stint with Sri Lanka and guiding Sunrisers Hyderabad to the 2016 IPL title.
And then there was Anil Kumble, who joined the race for the job at the eleventh hour, but the game immediately changed once he entered it. With his record 619 Test wickets there was no contesting Kumble's stature. If at all there was doubt, it was about his lack of coaching experience. Indeed, that led to him not being included in the shortlist of 21 candidates when it was submitted to the cricket advisory committee of Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly and VVS Laxman on June 21. But given his legendary career - and that he has mentored Mumbai Indians and Royal Challengers Bangalore - the panel asked for Kumble's name to be included anyway. At Kolkata, Kumble made a presentation on his vision for the future of Indian cricket, which is believed to have wowed his former team-mates. Given his reputation as a tech-savvy, articulate cricketer, that came as no surprise.
However, the committee did not indicate any preference while forwarding its list of three names to the BCCI bosses. That's when Thakur and BCCI secretary Ajay Shirke went into a huddle with the panel. According to sources, Kumble soon emerged as the leading candidate, with Ganguly and Thakur particularly vociferous in supporting him. Shastri was the second preference, with Tendulkar speaking about his contribution to Indian cricket as team director. However, after animated discussion, Sachin too cast his vote for Kumble and it became a unanimous choice.
Kumble is also understood to have enjoyed the support of a prominent, politically influential member of BCCI, who backed his candidature because of his “no-nonsense” reputation. “Kumble emerged as the clear choice because of his cricketing experience. For this kind of job, experience on the field does matter a lot,” a source close to the development said.
