The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) recently replaced Zaheer Khan with Bharat Arun as the bowling coach of the Indian Cricket Team. His stint with Team India will last till World Cup 2019. This is for the second time that he has been appointed as team’s bowling coach. Earlier, he was the bowling coach from August 2014 to April 2016, where he nurtured many young bowlers who currently are the key members of the Virat Kohli-led Indian squad.
The newly appointed bowling coach didn’t receive a warm welcome by the Indian cricket fans on the social media as he was chosen over Zaheer Khan. However, he will be working with the Indian team for the next two years under the head coach, Ravi Shastri. The entire team and the support staff have reached Sri Lanka for the bilateral series which is scheduled to be starting from July 26. Here we have a look at some of the unknown facts about the new Indian bowling coach.
Who is Bharat Arun?
Team India’s new Bowling Coach, Bharat Arun/ Photo: Indian Express
- Former Indian pacer, Bharat Arun was born on December 14th, 1952 in Vijayawada, Andhra Pradesh. He represented Tamil Nadu in the domestic circuit as an all-rounder – right-hand batsman, right-arm medium pacer
- He had played 48-first class matches where he scored 1652 runs including 3 centuries. While bowling, he took 110 wickets at an average of 32.44.
- Appeared in the only U-19 match in 1981 under Ravi Shastri’s captaincy. Later, played 4 ODIs and 2 Tests for India where he took a total of 5 wickets. (1 in ODI and 4 in Tests)
Stint as Coach
Team India’s new Bowling Coach, Bharat Arun/ Photo: TOI
- Arun started his career as a coach in 2002 with coaching the Tamil Nadu’s domestic team and served till 2006. During his tenure, the Tamil Nadu team reached the Ranji Trophy finals in the 2003 and 2004 seasons.
- He had also served as the coach of the U-19 Indian team which won the U-19 World Cup in 2012. However, in 2014, the team under him, as the coach, was out of the tournament and ended at 5th position.
- He has also served as the assistant coach of the Royal Challengers Bangalore in the IPL. He joined the team in 2015 and continued for the next two years.
- In the 2016-17 Ranji season, he was appointed as the coach of Hyderabad. During his stint, the Hyderabad Ranji team made into the quarterfinals and bowlers like Mohammed Siraj, Chama Milind and Ravi Kiran collectively took 110 wickets in just 9 matches.
Bowling coach of the Indian Cricket Team
In August 2015, Arun was first appointed as the bowling coach of the Indian cricket team. He was on a two-year contract which ended with the WT20 2016 held in India.
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