BCCI has appointed former India middle-order stalwart VVS Laxman as India’s head coach for the Asia Cup 2022 in UAE on a temporary basis. He has come on board as an interim replacement for his ex-teammate Rahul Dravid, who is down with Covid-19.
Laxman has joined the Indian squad and oversaw the first training session of the Rohit Sharma-led side on August 24 as the team geared up their first group stage encounter on August 28 against arch-rivals Pakistan.
Regarded as one of the best batters India have produced, Laxman holds great familiarity with the contemporary set of Indian players. Having played with some of the Indian stars at the twilight of his career, he recently travelled with an alternate Indian squad for tours to Ireland in June and Zimbabwe in August, in between overseeing the team for the first T20I of the series in England.
In charge of the National Cricket Academy in Bangalore now, Laxman guided the fringe side for these assignments since Dravid was busy planning and preparing the main team for series in the UK and the Caribbean before taking a breather for the Zimbabwe trip.
The Asia Cup 2022 will be Laxman’s first assignment with the full-strength side bar the injured pace duo of Jasprit Bumrah and Harshal Patel, both ruled out of the regional tournament which India enter as defending champions. India had won the inaugural edition of the competition in T20I format back in 2016 in Bangladesh and also clinched the previous 50-over version of the same in 2018 in UAE.
India are part of Group A, and they will take on Pakistan on August 28 before facing Hong Kong on August 31. Top two teams from respective three-side groups make the cut for the Super 4s, from where the finalists are determined. Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Afghanistan are part of Group B.
Former India captain Dravid missed the flight to Dubai owing to a positive test for Covid-19. As per a BCCI release, he only has “mild symptoms” for now to deal with and can link with the side “once he tests negative and is cleared by the medical team”.
Recently when opener KL Rahul had tested positive for the virus before his scheduled trip for the T20I leg of the series against the West Indies, the player was immediately ruled out of the tour and given an extra week’s off to completely recover and rejuvenate himself.
It would be interesting to see if the board will follow suit for Dravid, too, and let Laxman supervise the team for the entirety of the Asia Cup that concludes on September 11.
Laxman comes with a wealth of playing experience. Considered a jewel of Indian batting at its finest, he played 134 Tests and 86 ODIs for the country in a 16-year-long career spanning 1996 to 2012. Laxman remained an integral cog in India’s wheels for the better part of two decades at the Test level, scoring 8,781 runs at 45.97 with 17 hundreds and 56 half-centuries.
His career marked by grace and elegance to his batting and the ability to rise over the odds in the most trying circumstances, Laxman was poetry in motion and played a number of famous knocks, none celebrated better than his match-winning 281 in the series-transforming Kolkata Test of the 2001 Border-Gavaskar Trophy against Australia.
Post his retirement in 2012, Laxman joined Sunrisers Hyderabad as mentor for a nine-season term that lasted till the end of IPL 2021. He took charge of NCA last year, replacing Dravid, who was elevated to head coach’s role following the end of Ravi Shastri’s tenure.
