Ravishankar Jayadritha Shastri is an Indian former commentator, cricketer and the former head coach of the India national cricket team. As a player, he played for the India national cricket team between 1981 and 1992 in both Tests and ODIs. Although he started his career as a left arm spin bowler, he later transformed into a batting all-rounder. As a cricketer, Shastri was essentially defensive with his trademark “chapati shot”, but he could raise his strike rate when required. Due to his above-average height and an upright stance, he had a limited number of shots against fast bowling, but was able to put the lofted shot to good use against spin bowling. Ravi played either as an opening batsman or in the middle order.The highlight of his career was when he was elected Champion of Champions in the World Championship of Cricket in Australia in 1985. In the same season, on 10 January 1985,he equaled West Indian Garry Sobers’s record of hitting six sixes in an over in first class cricket. He was regarded as a potential captain, but his image outside cricket, injuries and tendency to lose form at crucial times meant that he captained India in only one Test match.
In domestic cricket, he played for Bombay and led them to the Ranji Trophy title in his final year of playing. He also played four seasons of county cricket for Glamorgan. He was forced to retire aged 31 due to a recurring knee injury. He has done commentary on behalf of BCCI in the matches that India play.In 2014, he became the director of Indian cricket team for a period of eight months from India’s tour of England till the 2015 World Cup. On 13 July 2017, he was appointed as the head coach of Indian cricket team. On 16 August 2019, he was re-appointed as the head coach of the senior men’s Indian team and will remain in charge until the 2021 ICC T20 World Cup.
Ravi Shastri to join new IPL franchise Ahmedabad as head coach.
Indian head coach Ravi Shastri, who is on his way out after the end of the T20 Word Cup 2021, is all set to become the coach of the new IPL team from Ahmedabad. It is also reported that Shastri won’t go alone to Ahmedabad but take the support staff of the Indian cricket team as well with bowling coach Bharat Arun and fielding coach R Sridhar joining him. All three — Shastri, Arun, and Sridhar will finish their tenure as coaches of the Indian cricket team after the conclusion of the ongoing T20 World Cup in the United Arab Emirates. And, BCCI has already announced Rahul Dravid as Shastri’s successor.
According to a report on Cricbuzz, Shastri has been offered the head coach’s role by the Ahmedabad franchise and he is also keen to have a coaching stint with an IPL team. Shastri was appointed as the full-time head coach of the Indian team on an initial contract of two years. His contract was renewed till the T20 World Cup 2021 after the conclusion of the ODI World Cup in 2019. Under Shastri, India are yet to win a major ICC trophy but have registered some memorable series wins both at home and away from home, including back-to-back Test series wins in Australia.
With the addition of two new teams — Ahmedabad and Lucknow, the IPL will be a 10-team affair from the 2022 season. The RPSG group of Sanjiv Goenka bought the Lucknow franchise for a whooping 7090 crore while CVC Capitals were awarded the Ahmedabad team for an amount of 5625 crore. However, the Indian coach has still not finalised anything as he wants to give all his attention to India’s campaign in the mega event.