Ravi Shastri Reappointed Head Coach of Team India by CAC, Gets Contract Till 2021 T20 World Cup

Ravi Shastri Shastri was pipped to retain his position as the head coach after team India captain Virat Kohli expressed his desire to have him.

The Cricket Advisory Committee (CAC) of BCCI, led by Kapil Dev, reappointed Ravi Shastri for the position of the head coach of the Indian men’s cricket team till the 2021 T20 World Cup. The three-member committee announced their decision at the BCCI headquarters in Mumbai on Friday

Shastri was selected after the committee interviewed the six candidates which were short-listed for the high-profile job of Indian cricket. The 57-year-old former Indian international pipped Mike Hesson, Lalchand Rajput, Robin Singh, Phil Simmons and Tom Moody to retain his job of leading Virat Kohli & Co. However, Phil Simmons had withdrawn his name at the 11th hour citing personal reasons.

Reportedly, Shastri has been given the contract for his job as the head coach till the 2021 T20 World Cup. “The head coach will be at the helm of affairs till the 2021 World T20 and after that it will be a process of re-appointment or selection of a new coach as has been the trend in recent years. The support staff will also be handed contracts till the World T20 as continuity is very important considering the big-ticket events that are lined up over the next couple of years,” a BCCI functionary was quoted by IANS.

Suggesting that it was a hard decision for the CAC to finalize a name, leader of the committee Kapil Dev termed the contest as “a hard race”. “Number three was Tom Moody, number two was Mike Hesson. Number one is Ravi Shastri as all of you were expecting… (But) It was a very close race,” said the 1983 World Cup-winning captain at the press conference to announce the decision here.

Earlier, Shastri had been the team director for Kohli & Co. till between 2014 and 2016. In 2017 he acquired the role of the head coach after Anil Kumble resigned from the role following India’s defeat in the final of ICC Champions Trophy 2017.

Under his tenure, the Men in Blue recorded their first-ever Test series victory in Australia after unsuccessful tours of South Africa and England in 2018. However, the Ravi Shastri-coached team, who were one of the favourites to lift the ICC World Cup 2019, departed the tournament in the semi-final after finishing the league stage as the number one side.