Ravi Shastri prefers Bharat Arun over Zaheer Khan as bowling coach

The Cricket Advisory Committee which includes the likes of Sourav Ganguly, Sachin Tendulkar, and VVS Laxman, confirmed Shastri as a head coach and announced that Zaheer Khan and Rahul Dravid would act in the roles of the bowling coach and as a batting consultant respectively. According to reports, Shastri wants Arun as bowling coach, who held the position during the former's tenure as team director from 2014 to 2016. However, Shastri is not against Zaheer holding the position of a consultant.

"Shastri has asked for just one thing. He doesn't mind Zaheer as a consultant. But Arun has more technical experience in ironing out flaws," a source close to the development told TOI.

Zaheer, who was a key member of the 2011 World Cup winning team, has represented India in 92 Test and 200 ODIs. In the 2017 IPL, under the stewardship of Rahul Dravid, Zaheer led Delhi Daredevils in the 2017 edition of the IPL.

"No doubt Zaheer has a lot of knowledge. But he has no coaching experience. Everyone saw what happened with Anil Kumble. He can be groomed into a bowling coach," the unnamed source added.

The main concern Shastri has is Zaheer’s availability all the time. That is why Shastri thinks Zaheer is better for consultant role. "Is Zaheer willing to give 250 days a year to the team. He can come in and help Arun in that case," the source said.

Apart from this year, during the last year authorities approached Zaheer for this role but the deal couldn't be finalised because he allegedly demanded 4 crore rupees as his fees. "The board has been chasing him for over a year now. He was reluctant to do full-time job then. He hasn't said 'No' yet. So the decision as per the Cricket Advisory Committee (CAC) stands, once he sees the agreement, then he can decide for himself. As of now, he should be travelling to Sri Lanka with the team next week," a top BCCI official told.

BCCI compensated Rahul Dravid for quitting his chief mentor role with Delhi Daredevils. "It will clearly overshoot the board's budget. And it doesn't look nice to have major disparity in salaries of the support staff. It will be interesting once the contract is rolled out," the official said.