Rathour to replace Bangar as batting coach; Arun, Sridhar stay

Tribune News Service

chandigarh, august 22

Former Punjab captain Vikram Rathour, who played six Tests and seven ODIs for India, is set to become India’s batting coach. Rathour, who has been a national selector in the past, is set to replace Sanjay Bangar, the incumbent.

But the current bowling coach Bharat Arun and fielding coach R Sridhar are set to retain their positions for more years.

The Indian nation team’s selection panel, headed by MSK Prasad, has shortlisted three candidates each for all the positions for which interviews have been held in the recent days. Rathour heads the list for the batting coach’s job, followed by Bangar and former England batsman Mark Ramprakash.

Freshness

Prasad said that his panel was looking for ‘freshness’ in the batting department.

“In the last five years, there is definitely some amount of improvement. Looking ahead, with the Test Championship coming up and two T20 World Cups, we thought that there should be freshness in the department,” he said. “That’s the reason why we went ahead with Vikram Rathour as first choice. He was the director of HPCA (Himachal Pradesh Cricket Association), he was also the coach of Punjab Cricket Association, he was also an assistant coach with Kings XI Punjab, so he’s got enough experience behind him. Apart from that, he has been doing a lot of assignments with the National Cricket Academy so we are convinced with his skill-sets and we thought that he’d be our first preference.”

Rathour is the brother-in-law of Aashish Kapoor, an Under-19 selector, and a possible conflict of interest possibility was discussed. However, BCCI CEO Rahul Johri said there was no possibility of a conflict of interest. “This was discussed at the CoA meeting also because the CoA was presented with the shortlist,” Johri said.