Australian Troy Cooley set to be appointed NCA fast-bowling coach

The BCCI is set to appoint Australia's Troy Cooley as fast-bowling coach, and former India batters Hrishikesh Kanitkar and Shiv Sunder Das, along with Sitanshu Kotak, as the batting coaches at the National Cricket Academy (NCA) in Bengaluru.

Former India and Mumbai legspinner Sairaj Bahutule will be the spin-bowling coach.

Cooley is being roped in with an aim to create the country's next generation of fast bowlers. A reputed fast-bowling coach, Cooley was with the England set-up during their historic 2005 Ashes campaign in which their fast bowlers, on home soil, became a nightmare for the Australian batters. The success of Andrew Flintoff, Matthew Hoggard, Simon Jones and Steve Harmison was in part attributed to Cooley. Cooley was then roped in by Cricket Australia the following year and he worked with the national team till the 2010-11 season after which he joined the board's Centre of Excellence in Brisbane.

"I would say one of the biggest success for both Sourav [Ganguly, the BCCI president] and Jay [Shah, the secretary] is to convince Troy Cooley to work with India's next batch of pacers at the National Cricket Academy," a senior BCCI official told PTI on the condition of anonymity. "We are hearing that BCCI is giving Cooley a three-year contract and he will closely co-ordinate with the NCA head of cricket, VVS Laxman."

BCCI set to introduce exclusive fast-bowlers' contracts
The BCCI is planning on how to prepare the next crop of fast bowlers and one of the decisions set to be taken is an 'Exclusive Young Pacers Contract'.

It is understood that Ganguly, Shah, head coach Rahul Dravid and NCA's new head VVS Laxman are trying to devise a contract that is exclusive and different from the central contract.

It is learnt that Cooley and Laxman will hand-pick 10 young fast bowlers who are currently not in the national reckoning or do not have central contracts. These young pacers will be selected from the junior and first-class set-ups and handed 'BCCI fast bowlers' contract.' They will be evaluated by Dravid and Laxman to see if they can be fast-tracked into the pathways team (India A) and then the senior side.

Kanitkar, Das appointed batting coaches
Kanitkar and Das are back in the NCA fold in their familiar role as batting coaches, along with Kotak, who is set to travel to South Africa with the India A team.

The three fielding coaches at the NCA will be Subhadeep Ghosh, T Dilip and Munish Bali. Dilip is currently working with the India senior team for the series against New Zealand while Ghosh will travel to South Africa with the A team. Bali is expected to work with the India men's U-19 side.

Both Ghosh and Das were part of India Women's support staff for the multi-format tour of Australia in September-October.