BCCI announce a 3-name shortlist for head coach of Indian women's team

The BCCI have shortlisted three names for the head coach of the Indian women's cricket team. Ramesh Powar, Gary Kirsten, and Herschelle Gibbs made the cut from a pool of 28 candidates.

Powar was the coach of the side for a year but due to the controversies with Mithali Raj at the recently concluded World T20, which saw India get knocked out in the semis, the BCCI decided against renewing his contract and inviting fresh applications instead.

However, he re-applied to be the coach once again after backing from women cricketers like Harmanpreet Kaur and Smriti Mandhana.

Gary Kirsten, on the other hand, put his name into the hat about a week ago, just before the applications closed on December 14. He was the world-cup winning coach for the Indian men's team in 2011, which saw India defeat Sri Lanka in Mumbai to lift the World Cup after 28 years.

Meanwhile, Herschelle Gibbs, who retired from international cricket more than five years ago, does not have much coaching experience.

Apart from Gibbs and Kirsten, Dimitri Mascarenhas, Brad Hogg, Trent Johnston. Dav Whatmore, Owais Shah, Colin Siller, and Dominic Thornely were amongst the candidates who had applied but failed to make the cut.

Amongst the Indians were Venkatesh Prasad, Manoj Prabhakar and WV Raman, Gargi Banerjee, and Aarti Vaidya.

The ad-hoc committee, who will conduct the interview for the shortlisted candidates, consists of Kapil Dev, Anshuman Gaekwad, and Shantha Rangaswamy.

If Kirsten does get the job to handle the women's team, it will be interesting to see whether he keeps his job as the head coach of the Royal Challengers Bangalore as well.