Mark Ramprakash and Jonathan Trott among high-profile names for India batting coach role
Former England batsmen Jonathan Trott and Mark Ramprakash are eying the role of India's batting coach as the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) appointed selection panel led by chief selector MSK Prasad continue to conduct interviews this week.
After the selection of the head coach was confirmed, the selection committe started the recruitment process for the the roles of batting, bowling and fielding coaches for the Indian men's cricket team. The interviews are scheduled to take place from Monday to Thursday.
According to a report in Espncricinfo, Ramprakash and Trott have been interviewed along with Thilan Samaraweera, Pravin Amre, Amol Muzumdar, Hrishikesh Kanitkar and Vikram Rathour. Sanjay Bangar, who is the current batting coach till the West Indies tour was an automatic entry but his chances of holding on to the job remains bleak.
Trott, who is currently holding a temporary role as batting coach at Kent, has also been invited to apply for the role of the batting coach with England Under-19s and England Lions. He also had a brief stint with the England senior side ahead of the Ireland Tests.
In the other departments, Jonty Rhodes and and Ant Botha applied for the role of the fielding coach and were interviewed on Wednesday while Venkatesh Prasad, Sunil Joshi, Amit Bhandari and Paras Mhambrey are the names that cropped up for the role of the bowling coach, currently held by Bharat Arun.
The initial contracts of the Indian coaching set up ended with the World Cup in July but they were handed extensions till the end of the ongoing West Indies tour. Since then, the role of the head coach has been re-assigned to Ravi Shastri by the Kapil Dev-led Cricket Advisory (CAC).
Kapil Dev and Co. also wanted to be a part of the process but it is has been said that will play no part in it. It is up to the selection panel and they might choose to contact the head coach before making any final choices. It is believed that Shastri would like to stick to his current staff Bharat Arun (bowling coach), Sanjay Bangar (assistant/batting coach) and R Sridhar (fielding coach) -- all of whom are automatic entries to the process. They were the ones who Shastri first picked when he joined the national set up as team director in 2014. Bangar and Sridhar were also a part of Anil Kumble's set up in 2016-17.
