India's former skipper Rahul Dravid, once called 'The Wall', is likely to succeed Ravi Shastri as the head coach of the country's cricket team.
According to local media reports, 48-year-old Dravid has agreed to take over as the chief coach of India's national cricket team from Shastri after the ICC T20 World Cup in the UAE and Oman.
Quoting unnamed sources, the reports said that India's all-powerful cricket board chief Sourav Ganguly spoke with Dravid "and the latter has agreed" to coach Indian players.
Shastri's tenure as India's head coach ends with the T20 World Cup, slated to take place in the two Gulf states from October 17 to November 14.
Dravid is currently the director of the national cricket academy of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI). He will have to step down from his position to take over as the national cricket coach.
Popularly known as "Mr Dependable", Dravid, alongside Ganguly, Sachin Tendulkar and VVS Laxman, were part of a formidable batting line-up that steered India to win many matches at home and abroad. All have retired from cricket, reports UNB.
Dravid made his Test debut against England in 1996 with a brilliant knock of 95 at Lord’s. In a career spanning 16 years, Dravid scored 13,288 runs in 164 Tests. He accumulated 10,889 runs in 344 one-day internationals.
Not only Shastri, India's charismatic skipper Virat Kohli will also step down as the country's T20 international captain after the T20 World Cup.
"I have decided to step down as the T20 captain after this T20 World Cup in Dubai in October," the 32-year-old said in a social media post last month.