Boycott to coach at India's academy?

Geoff Boycott is likely to become the coach of the National Cricket Academy (NCA) in Bangalore. According to a report in the Mumbai newspaper, Mid Day, a BCCI committee met in Kolkata and decided that Boycott was the man for the job. Brijesh Patel, the chairman of the academy, said, "We will ask him to inform the BCCI about his availability."

Boycott had earlier written to Jagmohan Dalmiya, BCCI's president, making himself available for just such a coaching assignment. He had also spoken about his desire for the job in his commentary stints with Sunil Gavaskar. Gavaskar, incidentally, was part of the BCCI committee that arrived at this decision, along with Dilip Vengsarkar.

The committee also decided on the three recipients of the Border-Gavaskar scholarship. Venugopal Rao, who took South Zone to a spectacular victory against England A in a recent Duleep Trophy match with an unbeaten double-century, is one of them. The other two are Shikhar Dhawan and Suresh Raina, who turned in strong performances in the Under-19 World Cup.