CAC appointed Ravi Shastri after consultation with Virat Kohli, confirms Sourav Ganguly

After a lot of drama and action, the Indian cricket team has finally got a new boss. Former Indian all-rounder Ravi Shastri has been appointed to coach the Indian team again, this time on a 2-year contract. Anil Kumble’s track record as the head coach was not poor, but he certainly had differences in approach with the skipper Virat Kohli. BCCI opted for captain before the coach and the axe fell on the legendary spinner.

It is an open secret that Shastri had the backing of Virat. Sourav Ganguly, who was the man behind the appointment of Kumble, was not ready to appoint the former team director as the head coach. Since Shastri’s removal a year back, there has been a cold war going on between the two former cricketers. Surprisingly, Ganguly now revealed that Shastri was the best among the candidates.

But he also added that the CAC came to the conclusion only after consulting the Indian skipper. With this, the first question that comes to mind is whether the supreme Tendulkar-Laxman-Ganguly panel actually had any role to play in the head coach selection or was it just a one man show from Virat. “We picked the best person we thought. In consultation with Virat, we picked the best person,” said Dada while speaking to the Indian Express.

When asked about whether all 3 members of the panel wanted Shastri or not, he replied “No, no. It was unanimous.” Zaheer Khan has been appointed as the bowling consultant and Rahul Dravid has been named the batting consultant for overseas Tests. He also revealed that the consultants were chosen only after communicating with Shastri. “He (Shastri) was consulted by Sachin. That’s why we had asked for time,” said Ganguly.

CAC does not want any further captain-coach altercation

Now that Kohli has got the man of choice for his boss, the CAC doesn’t want any further dispute between the skipper and the coach. The trio will sit with Kohli once he is back from America. “We want to speak to Virat Kohli once he is back from America, all three of us along with the respective people concerned. We will explain to him that the coaches want to function in a certain way and make sure that everybody is on the same page before we make the announcement because once we make the announcement it has to be till the (2019) World Cup,” Sourav had said after the interviews of the candidates for the coaching job.