BCCI’s Love For Lefty Batting Coaches Sets Tongues Wagging

The latest news that the phlegmatic Sitanshu Kotak is likely to be the dedicated batting coach of the men in blue team starting from the five-match Twenty20 series against England has set tongues wagging about the need to equip the Twenty20 World Cup winning team with three ‘batting’ coaches — all left handers — under head coach Gautam Gambhir who himself is a left hander. Abhishek Nayar (assistant coach) is a left hander and so too is Kotak. The BCCI has not declared Kotak being added to the team that will meet in Kolkata for the first match.  While India’s batters in general flunked against Australia in the Border-Gavaskar Trophy, the knee-jerk response from the BCCI — cannot say if the 116-Test veteran Dilip Vengsarkar, a 1983 World Cup winning star, a former Chairman of the senior national selection committee and an Apex Council member was consulted about the addition of a batting coach to the national team. And also Shubangi Kulkarni the second former cricketer in the Apex Council. Only the BCCI can reveal if Kotak is going to do the batting coach role across formats. More importantly to whom will the batters take their problems to — Gambhir, Nayar or Kotak who has not played for India in any format. Kotak (52) has played 130 first class matches and scored only 15 x 100s!  He has been part of the National Cricket Academy set up for many years and has managed India A and junior teams. In addition the men in blue team has a second Assistant Coach in Ryan ten Doeschate, bowling coach Morne Morkel and fielding coach T Dilip, who was retained from the previous coaching staff under Rahul Dravid.