Virender Sehwag set to give tough competition to Anil Kumble for India's Head Coach position: Report

Virender Sehwag may have just made the race to become the next Head Coach of Indian cricket team more exciting.

According to a report in Indian Express, the Kings XI Punjab coach was approached by one of the general managers of BCCI, on the sidelines of an IPL game, asking him to apply for the position.

"We have contacted Sehwag during the IPL and asked him to consider applying for the job of India coach. But he won’t be the only one applying because we expect other former players to also throw their hats in the ring," a top BCCI official was quoted as saying by Indian Express.

However, Sehwag had said that nobody has contacted him regarding the coaching job.

Anil Kumble is expected to push for the renewal of his contract which expires later in June. He has asked for a steep raise of remunerations for the players and supporting staff. He has been negotiating these payment terms with BCCI members and Supreme Court-appointed Committee of Administrators (CoA).

The new coach will be picked by the Cricket Committee consisting of Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly, and VVS Laxman among others. May 31 is the last date of application. 

The process will be overseen by BCCI CEO Rahul Johri and BCCI officials will be kept away from it after insistence from CoA. "This is to ensure that the process remains fair. We don’t want a scenario where the decision to pick a coach gets influenced by what has happened in the pay negotiations where Kumble is bargaining hard with BCCI officials," a BCCI official was quoted as saying by the daily.

The report says that CoA is considering not to take the team's recommendations for the post of Head Coach into account. They don't think that Cricket Committee considering the player's opinion into consideration is the right way to go.