IPL | Daniel Vettori, Trent Woodhill, Andrew McDonald sacked from RCB support staff group

Virat Kohli-led Royal Challengers Bangalore looked like one of the favorites to challenge for this year’s IPL title but failed to live up to expectations despite a good individual performance from Kohli. This has become somewhat of a trend for the Bangalore-based outfit who always seem to crumble under expectations ever since they reached the final against Deccan Chargers in the second edition of the competition.

Now Kohli, who has been associated with the franchise ever since season one, has stepped in to take matters into his own hands as he advised the board to let coach Daniel Vettori, along with support staff members Trent Woodhill and Andrew McDonald to be sacked. The trio were asked to step down from their positions with immediate effect ahead of the 2019 season of the IPL.

However, former Indian pacer - Ashish Nehra, who had joined the RCB last year as bowling mentor will continue to remain a part of the backroom staff for the time being. Mirror had reported that New Zealand’s Daniel Vettori, batting, and fielding coach Trent Woodhill from Australia along with fellow Aussie Andrew McDonald have been sacked by the Diageo management, who owned the Bangalore-based franchise. There was also a change in the administrative set-up, with Sanjeev Churiwala replacing previous boss Amrit Thomas which was for an entirely different reason.

The new coaching staff will be revealed but reports indicated that those coming in have been recommended by the Indian captain. Rumors suggest the favourite to take over the team’s reins is Gary Kirsten, who had famously coached India to the 2011 World Cup triumph. Kirsten had been added to the coaching staff last year as a batting consultant. 

The dynamic changes were caused by the performance of the side in IPL 11 as well as in the edition prior to that. Despite a power-packed batting line-up, led by the world’s very best Kohli and AB de Villiers, the team could manage only six wins in 14 league games in the 2018 edition of the tournament.

There were also rumors floating around that current Indian batting coach - Sanjay Bangar is also being looked at for the position of head coach. But if Bangar were to join RCB, he would be in danger of the dreaded conflict of interest clause. There have been attempts to make exceptions to the Indian coaching staff in recent times, which also included allowing India’s head coach Ravi Shastri to do commentary in the IPL, but the proposal seemed to have been shut down by the Supreme Court-appointed Committee of Administrators (CoA).

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