Rahul Dravid becomes India coach: 'An absolute honour'

FORMER India captain Rahul Dravid was on Wednesday (3) appointed as the head coach of the Indian cricket team. He will take over the reins from Ravi Shastri who is set to step down at the end of the T20 World Cup currently underway in the United Arab Emirates. India’s upcoming home series against New Zealand starting November 17 will be Dravid’s first assignment as the head coach. The series will feature three T20 internationals and two Tests.

The decision to make the 48-year-old Dravid as the chief coach of India was made by the Board of Control for Cricket in India’s (BCCI) advisory committee featuring former India woman wicket-keeper Sulakshana Naik and former India pace bowler RP Singh.

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The BCCI revealed in a tweet the news of Dravid's appointment as the head coach of the national team.

Dravid, who has earned a name in coaching with his successful stints with the junior and ‘A’ teams, was quoted as saying by the BCCI, “It is an absolute honour to be appointed as the new head coach of the Indian cricket team, I am really looking forward to this role. Under Mr (Ravi) Shastri, the team has done very well, and I hope to work with the team to take this forward.

“Having worked closely with most of the boys either at NCA, U19 and India A setup, I know they have the passion and desire to improve every day. There are some marquee multi-team events in the next two years, and I look forward to working with the players and the support staff to achieve our potential,” he added.

Dravid, who has been the chief of BCCI’s National Cricket Academy in Bangalore, was the coach of India’s U-19 team that won the World Cup in New Zealand in 2018. He was also in charge of a second-string Indian senior team that defeated Sri Lanka in a one-day international series in the island-nation earlier this year. He is also known for setting up a process of injury management and rehabilitation at the NCA, training programmes for coaches across India and developing roadmaps for age groups in both men’s and women’s cricket.

The appointment of the former batter, who was called ‘The Wall’ for his strong defence, was always on the cards after he formally applied for the head coach’s position after being convinced by his former India team-mate and BCCI president Sourav Ganguly and the board’s top brass following meetings on the sidelines of the Indian Premier League in Dubai in October.

The speculation over Dravid becoming a permanent India coach became rife ever since he played the role of the interim coach for the limited-overs series in Sri Lanka.

“Rahul’s effort at the NCA has nurtured several young cricketing talents who have gone on to represent the country at the international stage,” Ganguly said. “I am hopeful that his new stint will take Indian cricket to new heights. Rahul has had an illustrious playing career and is one of the greats of the game. He has also served Indian cricket as Head of National Cricket Academy with distinction,” he added.

Dravid, who made his Test debut in England in 1996 along with Ganguly, played 164 Tests, 344 one-day internationals and one T20Is till 2012, scoring more than 24,000 international runs and 48 hundreds.