Prasad, Sandhu join race for India head coach's job

Former India seam bowlers Venkatesh Prasad and Balwinder Singh Sandhu have thrown their hats into the ring for the Indian cricket team’s the high-profile job of head coach.

"I have applied this morning," confirmed Prasad, on Wednesday.

Asked whether he too had done the same, Sandhu replied: "Yes, I have applied for the job. I did it last evening and I am quite confident, although I know that Ravi Shastri is the front-runner."

Prasad and Sandhu will be vying for the coveted job alongside former Team Director Shastri and current chairman of the senior selection committee Sandeep Patil, who both have also applied for the job.

Currently chairman of the Board of Control for Cricket in India’s junior selection committee, Prasad, a former Karnataka and India pacer, is keen to return to the coaching role with Team India.

He was India’s bowling coach between 2007 and 2009, during which the Mahendra Singh Dhoni-led team won the inaugural 2007 ICC World T20.

He also worked in a similar capacity in the Indian Premier League with Royal Challengers Bangalore and the now-suspended Chennai Super Kings.

It is learned that the 46-year-old Prasad is open to becoming the team’s bowling coach if not selected as head coach.

Once Gary Kirsten took over as chief coach of the team in 2008, Prasad, who represented India in 33 Tests and 161 ODIs, claiming 96 and 196 wickets respectively, was replaced as bowling coach by Eric Simons.

Reminded that Shastri and Patil have also applied for the head coach's post, the 59-year-old Sandhu, who opened the way for India's victory in the World Cup final against two-time defending champions West Indies on June 25, 1983, by bowling Gordon Greenidge with a huge in-swinger, said: "We are good friends and I wish them (Shastri and Patil) well and know that they would wish me well too."

He added that he has a quarter of a century of coaching experience with various teams and was the first one to introduce video analysis for bowlers when he was the chief coach of Mumbai's Ranji Trophy team 15 years ago.

"I have coached Mumbai, MP and Baroda and also the (defunct) ICL teams," he said.

Sandhu, who represented India in eight Tests and 22 ODIs between 1983 and 1984, is not averse to becoming the bowling coach too, if given an opportunity.

"I understand spin bowling too as I started as a spin bowler. Bowling is my USP. I understand the psyche of the bowlers too and in tight situations it's the bowlers who win you games," he said.

Image: Venkatesh Prasad, left, gives tips to Munaf Patel during a training session when he was India's bowling coach.

Photograph: Adnan Abidi/Reuters