Will Ravi Shastri stay? BCCI shortlists six candidates for India head coach

The Board of Control for Cricket in India have shortlisted six candidates, including the incumbent coach Ravi Shastri, for the position of the next head coach of Team India.

The six candidates are - former New Zealand coach Mike Hesson, ex-Australia all-rounder and Sri Lanka coach Tom Moody, former West Indies all-rounder and Afghanistan coach Phil Simmons, ex-India team manager Lalchand Rajput, former India fielding coach Robin Singh and Shastri.

They will now give a presentation to the CAC

As per the stipulated norms, these shortlisted candidates will now give a presentation to the Cricket Advisory Committee (CAC), which is headed by former India captain Kapil Dev, and a final decision could come either by the end of this week or early next week.

"These six will give presentation for head coach before CAC. It has been learnt that these six have been short-listed for interview with the CAC," a senior BCCI official was quoted as saying by PTI.

The current coaching staff have been given an extension till the West Indies tour. However, before the Indian team departed for the tour, Indian captain Virat Kohli did say that he personally wanted Ravi Shastri to continue as the coach since he shares a great equation with the players in the Indian team.

As far as the shortlisted candidates are concerned, Mike Hesson was extremely successful as the head coach for New Zealand while Tom Moody is an experienced man when it comes to coaching. He has already coached Sri Lanka and has spent a lot of time in India as the coach of the different franchises of the Indian Premier League.

Phil Simmons has coached Ireland and Afghanistan and is one of the dark horses for the job. He also served West Indies for a brief while, helping them to victory in the 2016 World T20.

Both Lalchand Rajput and Robin Singh were part of the Indian management when they clinched the World T20 title back in 2007 and the CAC could offer them specific roles like bowling and batting coach jobs.

"The captain can say anything. It doesn't bother us. We are a committee. That's his opinion and the BCCI takes a note of it, not us," Anshuman Gaekwad told IANS.

"It all depends on BCCI. BCCI has to give us guidelines and then we will go accordingly. He has already said yesterday (what he wants). When we chose the women's coach, we did not contact anybody. We did it on our own," he added.