Sourav Ganguly was absent during my interview: Ravi Shastri

Former India team director Ravi Shastri has expressed his disappointment on losing out his job with the Indian cricket team.

Despite running as one of the frontrunners for the job, the three member advisory panel of Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly and VVS Laxman selected their former teammate Anil Kumble as the coach of Indian team.

Shastri, who was the Team Director for over 18 months, has revealed that Ganguly was not part of his interview session.

When Shastri’s interview was conducted, Laxman and BCCI convenor Sanjay Jagdale were at the Taj Bengal hotel, Tendulkar joined in from London via Skype, and Shastri was video-linked from Bangkok. 

As per Shastri, Ganguly was not part of the interview process and later reports revealed that Dada, the president of Cricket Association of Bengal was busy holding a meeting with the members of CAB.

"Meeting was great. Some great questions from VVS, Sachin and Sanjay. I put my way forward for the team. They wanted to know how do I plan to do well in all formats, how we should look at fast bowlers, and things of that sort," Shastri told the Indian Express.

On being asked about questions from Ganguly, Shastri said, "Well, actually he wasn’t there."

Shastri however did not ask why one of his interviewers was absent.

"That I can’t ask na. I responded to the questions asked and as I told you there was some good questions from the three, and it was a great meeting," he said.