The Indian cricket team is set to embark upon a new adventure on the tour of Ireland in the T20I series. While head coach Rahul Dravid has been given a rest for the assignment, even VVS Laxman, who usually steps into Dravid’s shoes in such cases, will not be touring with the boys. In the absence of the two India stalwarts, the young Indian team will see former domestic stalwart Sitanshu Kotak taking up the role of the head coach. Kotak is presently the head coach of the India A team at the NCA. As per reports, Laxman was supposed to be the head coach of the Indian team on the tour of Ireland but his next task is to oversee a high-performance training camp near Bengaluru. The camp will last for three weeks, making him unavailable for the Ireland T20Is that begin on August 18. It has also been reported that Kotak will be accompanied by Sairaj Bahutule as the team’s bowling coach. “Kotak and Sairaj Bahutule (bowling coach) will travel with Jasprit Bumrah & Co for the three-match T20I series (from August 18-23), as Laxman will conduct the high-performance camp from August 16 to September 5, for which youngsters like Abhishek Sharma, Dhruv Jurel, Riyan Parag, Prabhsimran Singh, Sai Sudarshan, Akash Singh, Rajvardhan Hangargekar and Divyansh Saxena have been called up by the BCCI,” source said.
The series might only feature T20Is, but it remains quite important for the Indian team management, keeping in mind the return of Jasprit Bumrah, and will feature exciting young guns like Ruturaj Gaikwad, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Rinku Singh, Jitesh Sharma, etc. Sitanshu has the experience of coaching the Inda A team for two years and the Ireland opportunity allows him to work with some of the next-gen Indian players who could go on to be the future greats of the game.
