IPL 2020: RCB sack Gary Kirsten, Ashish Nehra; Mike Hesson and Simon Katich take over

After being at the bottom of the table in two of the last three IPL seasons, Royal Challengers Bangalore have now parted ways with Gary Kirsten and Ashish Nehra.

In their place, the RCB management has appointed Mike Hesson as director of cricket with Simon Katich, the former Australia batsman, as the head coach.

Nehra and Kirsten had been appointed as bowling and batting coaches respectively in 2018 after former New Zeland captain Daniel Vettori was removed as head coach the same season. 

Both Nehra and Kirsten were part of the leadership group along with RCB captain Virat Kohli. However, the team that made it to the final in 2016, finished sixth in 2018 and were at rock bottom in IPL 2019.

According to Royal Challengers chairman, Sanjeev Churiwala, the move to switch to a single-coach model became necessary because the Indian Premier League (IPL) franchise wanted to achieve "high performance", according to ESPN Cricinfo.

"RCB's purpose is to be the most trusted, respected and best performing T20 franchise and hence our constant endeavour is to create a culture of excellence and high performance for every member of the team," he said in a media statement.

"We believe that Mike's extensive experience in building strong teams along with Simon's powerful cricket experience will help us create a winning culture. As a result of this restructuring exercise, we will be moving to a single coach model," the chairman added.