Rahul Johri to meet Team India in Jamaica to seek insights on head coach

The BCCI CEO Rahul Johri will travel to Jamaica, the venue for the last ODI and the one-off T20 against West Indies, in order to meet Virat Kohli and his team to seek feedback from the players on the appointment of the new head coach. The BCCI is leaving no stone unturned to avoid another captain and coach altercation.

Johri is said to arrive in Jamaica on Wednesday and will have an elaborate discussion with the members of the team over the prospective candidate for head coach’s position and other support staff. The hunt for the head coach is on ever since reports of differences between Kumble and Kohli surfaced in the media. A BCCI official confirmed the news of Johri’s departure for the Caribbean.

“Yes, Rahul has left for Jamaica with permission of the Committee of Administrators (COA). He has been instructed with the task of getting feedback from the captain and the team. The team’s feedback will then be passed to the Cricket Advisory Committee (CAC) to take all parameters into account,” a BCCI official privy to the development said to PTI.

What is the point of CAC?

BCCI had appointed greats Sourav Ganguly, Sachin Tendulkar and VVS Laxman to hunt for a new coach. These form a three-man panel: Cricket Advisory Committee, which elected the former coach Anil Kumble in June last year. If BCCI is seeking insights from the Indian team, then the three-man panel’s existence doesn’t serve any purpose at all. The CAC will conduct interviews of the prospective candidates on July 10 in Mumbai.

Ravi Shastri is the frontrunner to get the nod this time after he lost to Kumble last year. He is revered by the Indian Team with Kohli having explicitly mentioned the former Director’s contribution to Indian cricket during his two-year tenure.

Prasad never applied for the position

Recently, the news of Venkatesh Prasad putting his name forward for the Indian Head Coach’s position was doing the rounds. It turns out that it was a mere speculation as he is a selector with a junior team.

“Venkatesh Prasad’s CV is not there among those who have applied for the coach’s post. He is working as the chairman of selectors with the junior team. We don’t know who spread the news. Venky on his part never confirmed that he has applied for the job,” said the source.

The writing is pretty much on the wall. In all probability, Ravi Shastri will take the reins of the side which will make a mockery of the other candidates – Virender Sehwag, Tom Moody and Phil Simmons – who have applied for the position.