Former captain Ravi Shastri was on Tuesday named India's interim coach for next week's tour of Bangladesh after officials failed to appoint a full-time successor to Duncan Fletcher. Zimbabwean Fletcher's four-year term ended after the recent World Cup in Australia and New Zealand where Mahendra Singh Dhoni's defending champions were ousted in the semi-finals.
Shastri, who was the team director on the bilateral tour of Australia and the World Cup, was announced as a stop-gap arrangement for the short visit to Bangladesh to play one Test and three one-day internationals. The Indian cricket board added in a statement that Shastri will be assisted by batting coach Sanjay Bangar, bowling coach Bharat Arun and fielding coach R. Sridhar, all of whom served the team in Australia.
The tour begins with the one-off Test in Fatullah from June 10 to 14, followed by three one-day internationals in Dhaka on June 18, 21 and 24. A full-time coach is expected to be named ahead of a limited-overs tour of Zimbabwe in July. The board had on Monday named three former batting greats, Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly and V.V.S. Laxman, to an advisory panel that is likely to play a key role in picking the new coach.