After the appointment of Zaheer Khan as the bowling coach and Rahul Dravid as batting consultant, rumours spread that this decision is forcefully imposed on the new head coach, Ravi Shastri. Finally, the members of Cricket Advisory Committee (CAC) broke silence on this matter and denied the above fact.
The CAC members, Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly, and V.V.S Laxman expressed pain and disappointment to hear this news and wrote a letter to the he Committee of Administrator (CoA) chief Vinod Rai and BCCI‘s acting secretary Amitabh Choudhary saying that Zaheer and Dravid were appointed to help Shastri and the decidion was never forcefully imposed on him.
The letter said, “Taking various factors into account, we decided that Ravi Shastri was the best man for the job (head coach), but we also felt that Indian cricket would be better served if Shastri had the services of Zaheer Khan as bowling consultant and Rahul Dravid as batting consultant for overseas Test matches, of which several are lined up in the next two years.”
The legendary trio also said that before appointing Zaheer Khan and Rahul Dravid, Ravi Shastri was consulted. “We spoke to Shastri about getting Khan and Dravid on board in these capacities, and he readily agreed to the idea of having them in the set-up so that it would benefit the team and Indian cricket as a whole in time to come. It was only after getting Shastri’s consent that we also recommended the names of Khan and Dravid in their respective capacities,” the letter further added.
The CAC concluded the letter saying that the three of them played cricket with dignity and have brought the same trait in fulfilling the responsibilities given to them by BCCI, and any kind of falsehoods of the narratives are not appreciated. The CAC members also asked Rai to clear the air on this issue.