Ravi Shastri wants Bharat Arun as bowling coach, prefers Zaheer Khan as consultant

NEW DELHI: Two days after the appointment of Ravi Shastri and Zaheer Khan as head coach and bowling coach, it has emerged that Shastri is set to have a meeting with Supreme Court-appointed ( CoA) on Monday to discuss the role of bowling coach.

It is learnt that Shastri is adamant on having Bharat Arun, who served as the bowling coach during his last stint as team director, back on board.

In an interview to ToI on Thursday, Shastri clearly stated that he was entitled to pick his support staff. However, Shastri is not averse to the idea to have Zaheer as the bowling coach. "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 on Thursday. "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 source added.

The concern Shastri has if Zaheer can be available all the time. "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.

As on Thursday morning, the contracts were not finalised. Last year, Zaheer couldn't be roped in because BCCI wasn't willing to pay him Rs 4 crores demanded by him. "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 TOI.

The other issue is that if Zaheer does agree to a full-time job, then the board will have to pay him a compensation for quitting Delhi Daredevils just as they are doing with Rahul Dravid. "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.