Mumbai: India’s three-member Cricket Advisory Committee (CAC), including Kapil Dev, Anshuman Gaikwad and Shantha Rangaswamy on Saturday reappointed Ravi Shastri as the head coach until November 2021.

Although it was Shastri who got the job, former New Zealand coach Mike Hesson came second and Tom Moody came third in order of preference of the CAC. It was expected that Shastri would start as favourite since CAC had clearly stated that it was not in favour of a foreign face.

This also meant that other Indian candidates, including the likes of Lalchand Rajput who was the manager of the Indian team which won the inaugural World T20 and former coach of the Mumbai Indians Robin Singh were also in the race but were not considered for the job.

It should be highlighted here that Moody was rejected earlier in 2017 as well and even then Shastri was chosen over him.

Another factor which worked in Shastri’s favour was that Indian Cricket team’s captain Virat Kohli himself had backed Shastri and stated that the team wanted Shashtri to continue.

 “The CAC hasn’t contacted me yet. If they want my opinion, I’ll go and speak to them. With Ravi Bhai, we share a great camaraderie, and will definitely be very happy if he continues. But I haven’t been contacted so far,” Virat had said at a press conference.

Under Ravi Shastri’s stint as coach, India won a Test Series in Australia for the first time in history and also clinched the Asia Cup title. However, in ICC Champions Trophy India lost to Pakistan in the finals and to New Zealand in the semis in ICC Cricket World Cup 2019.