 Finally, the Indian Premier League team Kolkata Knight Riders, have a coach
who seems to change the fate of the team in the next IPL season. Director of the
National Cricket Academy (Bangalore), Dav Whatmore has finally been zeroed in
for the position of the head-coach in the next IPL season after meeting a number
of candidates for the same position.
Whatmore, who has brought victories to the countries he coached, is now expected
to utilize his experience for the Kolkata Knight Riders who have performed
very bad in the last two seasons of the Twenty20 tournament, finishing sixth in
the first and eighth in the second. John Buchanan was sacked by the team
management about three months back and the speculations of who would coach KKR
have finally come to an end. The list of candidates includes WV Raman, John Wright,
Richard Pybus, Dermot Reeve, Duncan Fletcher, Lalchand Rajput and Ashok
Malhotra.
However, the Board of Control for Cricket has allowed Whatmore to resign from
the post of director of National Cricket Academy so that he can start up with
his new project as soon as possible. The KKR management has also decided to appoint
Vijay Dahiya as assistant coach and Wasim Akram as the bowling 'consultant'
for the team.
Whatmore has coached national teams like Sri Lanka and Bangladesh and was also
considered to coach India in 2007, but Gary Kirsten was chosen over him
just at the last moment by the BCCI management. He led Sri Lanka to World Cup
title with a historic win in 1996 and guided Bangladesh to two remarkable triumphs
in the 2007 World Cup. The Junior World Cup victory by the Indian Under-19 team
in Malaysia last year was also a Whatmore effort.
While an official announcement of his appointment yet remains to be made other
speculations like reappointment of Sourav Ganguly as skipper of KKR for
the next season are also in sight. It is also presumed that Brendon McCullum,
who was the captain in the second season, will not be available for most of the
next IPL due to his commitments to his national team New Zealand for the home
series against Australia in March.
Buchanan was sacked after his poor show as a coach and was surrounded by controversies
like multi-captaincy theory and racial discrimination allegations in the team
as well. Reportedly, the KKR management held an interview with Dav Whatmore
in August at Shah Rukh Khan's Mumbai residence, who co-owns the team along side
businessman Jay Mehta.
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