Mumbai: The wait for Indian cricket to find out who the Rahul Dravid’s successor as the men’s team’s head coach would be, is likely to end soon, with Gautam Gambhir reportedly all set to take up the responsibility.
Gambhir’s name has been doing rounds in the Indian cricketing spectrum, with his impressive stint as mentor for Indian Premier League (IPL) 2024 franchise seeing his stocks rise. The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) also seemed to be interested in a host of big Australian names, as well as other IPL coaches like Stephen Fleming and Andy Flower, for the role of head coach of the Indian team, but it’s Gambhir who seems to be ahead of the rest.
Gambhir’s name started getting discussed as KKR produced an emphatic performance in the league stage of the IPL 2024, finishing as the No. 1 side. A few games later, the Knight Riders defeated Sunrisers Hyderabad in the final to take the title home. After the final, Gambhir also had a lengthy chat BCCI secretary Jay Shah. Though the content of the chat isn’t known, the visals did fuel speculations.
According to a report in India Today, Gambhir is now set to replace Dravid as Team India’s head coach. Though Gambhir recently took the role of KKR’s mentor, leaving his job with the Lucknow Super Giants, another IPL side he had joined as a member of the coaching staff in 2022.
Though the former India opener doesn’t have any experience of being the head coach of a national side, or even IPL, his role in taking KKR to IPL triumph this year was reportedly enough for the BCCI to seriously consider his name as Dravid’s successor.
The BCCI invited applications for the head coach’s role by May 27, and is said to have received over 3000 forms, including some fake ‘Sachin Tendulkars’, ‘Narendra Modis’ and ‘Amit Shahs’. The board is likely to being the process of interviewing shortlisted candidates soon, with the Cricket Advisory Committee leading that charge.