Shastri not the choice? CAC seeks time

The Lodha Panel-recommended Cricket Advisory committee, comprising Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly and VVS Laxman, interviewed candidates for the position of the Indian Head Coach on Monday. After Anil Kumble resigned from the post citing “untenable relationship” with Captain Virat Kohli as the reason, Shastri seemed to be the clear favourite as he enjoys the support of the Captain and the senior players.

The CAC, however, has hinted that Shastri might not take up the job as CAC Chief Sourav Ganguly said, “we want to talk to Virat once he is back. We will explain to him that the coaches want to function in a certain way so that everyone is on the same page.”

Shastri enjoyed a successful tenure as the team Director when India finished as the semi-finalists of the ICC World Cup 2015 but lost to veteran Anil Kumble for the position of head coach last time. Interestingly, Shastri and Ganguly also had a public spat after Shastri claimed that Ganguly wasn’t present for his interview. Ganguly too responded questioning Shastri’s professionalism by asking why he was sitting abroad when he had to be interviewed in India.

Sehwag, the hot favourite all of a sudden, has no International credentials to his name and neither has his two stints as Kings XI Punjab mentor been fruitful but a two- hour long interview indicates a favourable outcome for the former Indian Opener.

Tom Moody, the Australian International is also believed to be a front runner with his impeccable credentials. He had coached the Sri Lanka team to the finals of the 2007 World Cup and has coached county sides and domestic T20 sides throughout the world.

With an extended deadline of July 9, BCCI had received 10 applications including the likes of Ravi Shastri, Virender Sehwag, Richard Pybus, Dodda Ganesh, Tom Moody and Lans Klusner. The fight, however, seemed to be between Sehwag and Shastri when the CAC met in Mumbai on Monday but the CAC chief, Sourav Ganguly sought more time saying the CAC wants to meet the Captain before taking the final decision.

Zimbabwe creates history, defeats Sri Lanka in 5-match ODI series

The five match ODI series, much to the surprise of cricket enthusiasts, stood at 2-2 after four matches were played. The last match of the series promised to be a thriller but in the end Sri Lanka were no match for Zimbabwe on Monday and lost by 3 wickets conceding the ODI series 2-3 to the visitors.

Zimbabwe won the toss and elected to bowl first, the bowler’s reacted quickly to Skipper Graeme Cremer’s call and restricted the hosts to a below-par 203-8 in 50 overs. The onus shifted on to the batsmen to guide their team to a memorable and a historical series win, the top-three responded with Hamilton Masakadza, Solomon Mire and Tarisai Musakanda scoring 73, 43 and 37 respectively. A mini-collapse afterwards derailed Zimbabwe but Sikandar Raza (27) and Skipper Cremer (11) ensured a comfortable victory in the end.

Nadal’s Wimbledon 2017 hopes crashed and over

Rafael Nadal’s all hopes of winning the third Wimbledon came to an end after the veteran faced an epic defeat against 16th seed Giles Muller. The match looked like a one-sided affair after Muller won the first two sets 6-3 and 6-4 but the World Number two had different plans in store when he made an epic comeback to level the scores after the fourth set to 2-sets each claiming the sets 3-6 and 4-6. The match went on for as long as four hours and 47 minutes and finally 30-year-old Muller emerged victorious after claiming the final set 15-13. The 31-year-old star player has failed to reach the Wimbledon quarter-finals since losing in the 2011 final.