Former Indian captain Ravi Shastri has agreed to become the Indian cricket team's manager for Bangladesh tour, according to BCCI official Raj Singh Dungurpur.
MUMBAI: Ravi Shastri has agreed to become the Indian cricket team's manager for Bangladesh tour, according to BCCI official Raj Singh Dungurpur.
Shastri was offered the role at the meeting convened on Friday to look into the team's first-round World Cup exit. India's Australian coach Greg Chappell resigned on Wednesday.
"This will give the board time to decide on Chappell's successor," a senior board official said on Saturday. "Board president Sharad Pawar has authorised the board to look for a bowling coach and fielding coach", he said.
The appointment might be a temporary one but the former all-rounder's outspoken character and no-nonsense approach will help in rein in the three Big Guns in the team - Rahul Dravid, Sachin Tendulkar and Sourav Ganguly.
Post retirement, Shastri, the original pin-up boy of Indian cricket, has been an honest and passionate critic of the Indian team. None could forget his bold defence of Sachin
Tendulkar when the latter was 'spotted' for ball tampering by Match Referee Mike Denness in South Africa in 2001.
The 44-year-old was a mentor of Tendulkar in his early days in international cricket but he won the trust of other members of the team when he took on the then Board headed by Jagmohan Dalmiya over the ambush marketing issue in 2002.
He also was a key member of the players' association which has failed to gain recognition of the Board though.
During the 12 years he played for India from 1981 to 92, Shastri proved himself as a versatile cricketer -- as a stubborn opening and middle order batsman and a dogged
left-arm spinner.
He played in 80 Tests scoring 3830 runs with 11 hundreds and taking 151 wickets. Besides, he also appeared in 150 one-day internationals, collecting 3108 runs and 129 scalps.
World Cup winning captain Kapil Dev spotted very early Shastri's leadership skills and the Mumbaikar did prove him right by leading India to a memorable win against the West Indies in the one Test he led the team.
But by his own admission, Shastri was never a highly talented batsman and a long run of poor scores in the early 90s meant his place in the Indian team, leave alone the
captaincy, was increasingly in doubt.
He was one of the casualties following India's dismal tour of South Africa in 1992 and it did not take long for his shrewd brain that it was time to move on.
After his debut as TV commentator in Sri Lanka in 1994, Shastri announced his retirement from the game.
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