With the bowling coach (Bharat Arun), batting coach (Sanjay Bangar), the fielding coach (R Sridhar) and pretty much every coaching staff the India cricket team needs at the moment, decided, all is left now is who would be keen on joining in as consultants in Ravi Shastri's team.
Rahul Dravid, who is already the coach of the India U-19 and the India A side, has already opted out of taking on such a role.
Former star Indian bowler Zaheer Khan could still join as a consultant, but nothing is confirmed as of now. The announcement came from the Committee of Administrators (CoA) Chairman Vinod Rai, on Saturday, July 22.
"The issues regarding Dravid's contract are all sorted. He has a two-year full-time contract and said that he is not available for tours abroad with the senior team. He does not want to hang around," Rai told reporters after his meeting with the BCCI officials on Saturday.
"Earlier, there was no system in place. We are trying to set templates. Zaheer is very much in the scheme of coaching various Indian teams but we can only have him after we have a contract in place.
"We can't just tell Zaheer okay we give you a three month or three-week contract and these are conditions. We have to also look into his IPL contract, media commitments," Rai added.
BCCI CEO Rahul Johri claimed that Shastri is in constant contacts with Zaheer at the moment and the former India team bowler could be given that consultant role during India's tour of South Africa, which could likely start in the final week of December or early January 2018.
Zaheer, 38, who got married to Chak De! India actress Sagarika Ghatge earlier this year, was the captain of Indian Premier League side Delhi Daredevils in IPL 2017 and it is predicted that the veteran bowler could be given some sort of a mentor role in the team in the upcoming season.
