BCCI to move ahead with coach selection

After being without a coach for seven months, the Board of Control for Cricket in India has decided to choose Greg Chappell's successor and has convened a meeting of the coach selection committee in Mumbai next week.

"The coach selection committee will meet in Mumbai on November 3," BCCI secretary Niranjan Shah said from Rajkot.

Former Australian captain Chappell did not seek a renewal of his contract following India's disastrous show in the World Cup and later the team had functioned with cricket managers.

The matter of appointing a new coach for the team was put on hold after the BCCI's decision in choosing Graham Ford backfired when the South African turned down the offer in June after initially accepting it.

Then the BCCI decided to invite applications for the job, but despite receiving more than a dozen of CVs, preferred to play the waiting game till the end of the ODI series against Australia.

The meeting of the special committee, headed by BCCI chief Sharad Pawar and comprising the Board's principal office-bearers along with ex-Test captains Srinivas Venkataraghavan, Sunil Gavaskar and Ravi Shastri, will be held two days before India's opening ODI against Pakistan in Guwahati on November 6.

Shah said the BCCI officials would also utilise the opportunity to hold discussions with newly-appointed director of the National Cricket Academy Dav Whatmore over the academy's set-up.

It has been reported that Leicestershire coach Tim Boon, Australians Richard Done, Terry Oliver, former South Africans Kepler Wessels, Dave Nosworthy, former New Zealand captain Martin Crowe, and Indians Vijay Mohanraj and Chandrakant Pandit have applied for the high-profile job.