There have been wide-spread criticism about India’s head coach selection and the target is former India captain Sourav Ganguly, who was one of the members of the three-member Cricket Advisory Committee (CAC) that picked the coach following an interview process.
It has been reported that Ganguly wasn’t even present in the interview room when Ravi Shastri, who was India’s Team Director till then, was interviewed. Not going into further details, Dada had a strong message to his detractors.
“Kumble is the biggest match winner on any day. I am saying this keeping in mind what Sachin had achieved for India. Kumble is the right person to coach India at this moment of time. I do not want to say anything much then it will be a headline again,” Ganguly was quoted as saying by sports website XtraTime.
The Prince of Kolkata was attending a school function to commemorate the 20th anniversary of his debut century at Lord’s back in the summer of 1996. He also answered queries from the overzealous students.
To a question on whether being a friend, the India’s coach’s post was a gift to Kumble, Dada shot back: “The very next day after Anil’s appointment as India’s head coach, I had seen a interview of Anil in a daily newspaper where he mentioned that after representing India for so many years in international level, he lead India for only one year. This is the answer for your question.”
The news of Ganguly’s absence during Shastri interview created a lot of controversy of late with everyone having a say. But there were no reactions from any of the three CAC members — Ganguly, Sachin Tendulkar (who interviewed candidates over video chat) and VVS Laxman — till now.
However, one of India’s most successful captains was full of praise for India’s Test captain Virat Kohli, both as batsman and as skipper. “I see the reflection of my playing days captain in Virat. He wants to win every match which I tried to possess when I captained India. I believe that Virat will lead in all formats very soon,” Dada said.