Harbhajan Singh wants THIS former India pacer to replace Rahul Dravid as India's T20 coach

Former cricketer Harbhajan Singh wants Rahul Dravid to relinquish his job as Team India's T20I coach following the Men in Blue's disappointing campaign at the recently concluded T20 World Cup 2022. Speaking to the news agency PTI, Harbhajan endorsed former Indian bowler Ashish Nehra to succeed Dravid as the T20I coach. Nehra is someone who has played the game more recently, according to Harbhajan, thus he is more familiar with the format than Dravid.

"In the T20 format you can have someone like Ashish Nehra who recently retired from the game. He knows this better than, with all due respect to Rahul, we have played together for so many years, he has vast knowledge but this is a tricky format. Someone who has played the game more recently is better suited for the coaching job in T20s. I am not saying you remove Rahul from T20. Ashish and Rahul can work together to build this team for the 2024 World Cup," Harbhajan was quoted as saying to PTI. 

Nehra most recently coached Gujarat Titans in the Indian Premier League (IPL), where he helped the side win their maiden championship. He became the first Indian coach to win the cash-rich tournament. Earlier, Nehra worked as a bowling coach for Royal Challengers Bangalore in IPL 2018 and 2019. Before entering the coaching business, Nehra played for India in white-ball cricket. He represented the country in 120 ODIs and 27 T20Is, in which the 43-year-old picked 157 and 34 wickets respectively. 

Dravid as the T20I coach

As far as Dravid is concerned, the former India captain took over as Team India's head coach in all three formats after Ravi Shastri stepped down in November last year. Despite putting on a strong performance in every bilateral series this year under Dravid's leadership, India failed to win the two major tournaments they took part in 2022. India failed to qualify for the finals of the Asia Cup and T20 World Cup. Now that the BCCI is apparently thinking of splitting up coaching and captaincy in the Indian team, Dravid's position as the T20I coach may be at risk.

Image: PTI/BCCI