Board of Control for Cricket in India secretary Niranjan Shah said the process of appointing a new coach for Team India will be completed by September 27.
"It is under process. We had a deadline of September 15 for receiving applications. There are 15-20 applications, which I will send to all the members of the [special coach selection] committee. We will scrutinize it and meet around September 27 to decide finally," he said in Mumbai on Tuesday.
It seems the BCCI is keen on completing the process and have a full-time coach in place before the seven-match series against World champions Australia gets underway.
Rahul Dravid left the BCCI shell-shocked last week when he announced his decision to step down as captain. But Shah says it was not shocking, as the selectors would have met to re-appoint Dravid since his term expired after the England tour.
"Anyways, he was the captain till the England tour and the selectors had to re-appoint the captain. I think we had enough time for that. I think we had a planning for the long schedule ahead. Today we had a long discussion for the same. There was no resignation. He did not offer himself to re-election as captain. He decided just 3-4 days back and the selection committee was to meet today, so we had enough time to select the new captain," he said.
With the captaincy issue sorted out for the time being, the Board is hoping that the coach's appointment is also done without any confusion.
The BCCI had issued an advertisement through the media on August 27 detailing the requirements for a new India coach, which has been left vacant since Greg Chappell quit after the team's disastrous showing in the World Cup.
It then appointed Graham Ford to take over the reins, but the South African turned down the offer at the last moment, much to the embarrassment of the Board after it had already announced him as the new coach.
Since then the BCCI fell back on stop-gap arrangements, first for the England tour and now the Twenty20 World Cup, in Chandu Borde and Lalchand Rajput respectively.
It has been reported that Leicestershire coach Tim Boons, Australians Richard Done, Terry Oliver, former South Africans Kepler Wessels, Dave Nosworthy, former New Zealand captain Martin Crowe, and Indians Vijay Mohanraj and Chandrakant Pandit have applied for the high-profile job.
The BCCI wants the new coach to possess Level III coaching credentials, be media and computer savvy, and also have the ability to motivate the players and optimize their performance at all times.
The candidate should have played at least at the first class level and have prior experience of coaching an international or national team or should have been a coach at an elite coaching centre of international repute.
