Anurag Thakur backs under-fire MS Dhoni

New Delhi: India will get a full-time coach after the World T20 championships in March and April this year, Board of Control for Cricket in India secretary Anurag Thakur indicated here on Monday.

Speaking at the launch of a social responsibility programme, ‘Team Swacch’, by Unicef ambassador Sachin Tendulkar and backed by the International Cricket Council’s Cricket for Good initiative and supported by the Indian cricket board, Thakur said the cricket advisory committee of Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly and V.V.S. Laxman would give their inputs to the BCCI on the coach issue.

“A demand for a full-time coach has been there for some time now. We had decided that Ravi Shastri will be team director till the World T20, but there is a need for a full-time coach,” Thakur said.

“The decision will be taken in consultation with the advisory committee. We might decide on a coach even before the World T20 but the proper announcement will only happen after the tournament,” he added.

The BCCI secretary said it was too early to react to the ODI series defeat in Australia and said skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni should not be punished for one poor result.

“Dhoni is India’s most successful captain. Under him we have won two world titles in 2007 and 2011. He has been a consistent captain for the last eight years. Just because of one disappointing series, it is unfair to blame him.

“The team management and the selection committee are discussing what went wrong and what corrective measures need to be taken before the World T20,” the BCCI secretary added.

On India’s fortunes in the upcoming T20 series Down Under which will see seniors like Yuvraj Singh, Harbhajan Singh and Ashish Nehra back in action, Thakur said it was too early to comment.

“Let them go and play. I am sure they would also want their performance to do the talking,” Thakur said.

DRS on the cards?

The Decision Review System —which India has consistently rejected in bilateral series, often to their own detriment — was back on centrestage after the reverses in Australia, and Thakur agreed there was a need to discuss its “conditional” use.

“DRS in its current form is not foolproof. But if we leave aside the leg before part, we can deliberate on the conditional usage of technology. Once the players are back from Australia we will discuss the issue with them,” he said at the Unicef event.

India could have seen a different result in two of the three matches played Down Under so far had DRS been in play with middle-order batsman George Bailey the beneficiary on both occasions. At Perth he scored a century as of to rub the point home.