Michael Hussey reveals he was approached to coach Indian team

Duncan Fletcher parted ways with the Indian cricket team after the 2015 World Cup and as per Micheal Hussey’s book, the ‘Winning Edge’, Mr. Cricket was approached to fill the position left vacant by the Zimbabwean. Hussey, who retired from International cricket in 2013, had worked with the South African team during the 2015 World Cup as a batting consultant and was approached by former Indian cricketer VVS Laxman for the India job during the 2015 India Premier League season.

Laxman, along with Sachin Tendulkar and Sourav Ganguly, formed the BCCI’s three-man advisory panel in June last year, to guide the board in all matters related to the game. However, the approach by the former Indian batsman was a month before he was formally inducted into the BCCI panel.

Hussey, who was part of the now-suspended Chennai Super Kings side last season, also revealed the approach by former Sri Lankan captain Mahela Jayawardene for the job of assistant coach for the Sri Lankan cricket team.

"The former Sri Lanka captain Mahela Jayawardene rang me a while ago to ask if I would be interested in being an assistant coach of Sri Lanka with a view to taking over as head coach a few months further down the track," Hussey wrote in his third book Winning Edge, which was released recently, reported ESPNcricinfo.

"A week later the ex-India batsman VVS Laxman asked me if I would be interested in coaching India. My initial answer to both of them was no because at the time I did not want to be on the road ten months a year; I wanted to be at home with my family and make up for some lost time from the previous few years. But, probably more relative to them, I said to each that I did not think I was ready to become the head coach of an international cricket team," Hussey added.

(Micheal Hussey feels that Dhoni will step aside from captaining the Indian team, if he feels he is not the right man for the job)

As per the report on ESPNcricinfo, Hussey told Laxman that even if he was willing to take up a job with the Indian team, he preferred to start as an assistant coach. Hussey wrote that Laxman acknowledged his reasons for not taking up the job and insisted that Mr. Cricket was fully capable of coaching an international team.

"VVS accepted that I was not interested because of family reasons. But he would not accept my feeling that I was not up to standard for a job like that. 'You have played the game very well for a long time, you know what needs to be done, you shouldn't doubt yourself', he said.

"I replied that coaching individuals within a team is one thing and perhaps I could do that right now. But, I said, these days coaching is not just about coaching players. It's about dealing with boards, sponsors, business owners, investors, officials, all sorts of people outside the team environment. It's a very complex job that requires numerous skills that have little or nothing to do with cricket," Hussey wrote.

As per the book, Laxman again disagreed with Hussey’s opinion and said that with the experience he had the International level and was more than capable of handling all the issues.

"He said that guys with our level of experience had more understanding of the ins and outs of the game than just about anyone. It got me thinking that maybe you do not need to go off and do all sorts of courses and tick all the official boxes. Maybe just having played for so long ingrains in a long-serving former player the knowledge required to take on all that is necessary to be a good coach," the 40-year old wrote.

Although the three-man advisory panel was formed with an eye to finding a new coach for the Indian team, the BCCI chose to continue with Ravi Shastri as the team director till the 2016 ICC T20 World Cup, back in September. 

(The end of the 'Whistlepodu' era - A trip down the memory lane on CSK's eight-year journey)