Indian board receives slew of applications for coach

Officially, unofficially and even through unauthorised personnel the Board of Control for Cricket in India has received nine applications for the post of Indian cricket coach. While the BCCI was not in a position to officially confirm or deny receipt of these applications, it has been reliably learnt that the CVs of Richard Done, Tim Boon, Kepler Wessels, Terry Oliver, Dave Nosworthy, Vijay Mohanraj, Martin Crowe and Chandrakant Pandit have reached the board headquarters in Mumbai.

Of all the candidates Done appears to be the most serious. He was once head of the Queensland Academy of Excellence, and took over as the high performance manager of the International Cricket Council in 2004 when Bob Woolmer joined Pakistan and left the post vacant. Done recently interviewed for the job of Pakistan coach but lost out to fellow Australian Geoff Lawson.

Oliver succeeded Bennett King as coach of the Queensland team in 2002 after King took up the West Indies job, but it appears that his candidature will be ruled out as the advertisement issued by the BCCI stipulates that candidates should have played "at least first-class cricket." Oliver, who played club and grade cricket in Australia, never played first-class cricket.

There's also Tim Boon, the former Leicerstershire batsman, who has served as assistant coach of the England team, who now coaches Leicerstershire. A while ago the BCCI received an application from Boon, although Paul Maylard-Mason, the chief executive of the Leicestershire County Cricket Club, issued a statement saying Boon was not in the race for the India job. Maylard-Mason insisted that Boon was committed to Leicestershire. Sources indicate that Boon has personally indicated his genuine interest in the India job, but the Indian board will be wary given their recent experience with Graham Ford.

Wessels, the former Australia and South Africa international, it is learned, reached Indian officials through a senior Indian cricketer, expressing an interest in the job. Wessels has coaching experience in England, with counties including Northamptonshire but has not coached an international team.

Nosworthy, who coaches Canterbury, has in the past coached teams in South Africa, where he played first-class cricket for Border and Northern Transvaal. Crowe's case is a curious one. His application was first forwarded to the BCCI by "a well-wisher" and Crowe said he had no idea that his CV had reached the BCCI. Later, though, he admitted that could be interested in the job under conducive circumstances.

The two Indians in the list are Mohanraj and Pandit. Pandit says he has not specifically applied for the job of Indian national team coach, but rather wrote to the board offering his services in any capacity they saw fit. He has stated in the letter that he was prepared to work with the Under-19 team, the India A team or the national team. Mohanraj was a left-handed opening batsman who played 54 first class matches for Hyderabad and later went on to coach their Ranji Trophy team and also served as a selector in the state.