More on the new National Coach saga

While we wait to hear who Cricket Kenya decide on to lead the team up to the next World Cup, rumour continues to abound. Richard Mwangi in a recent article stated that the 5 shortlisted candidates were being flown out to Kenya for interviews. In fact what is happening is that one of the shortlisted candidates offered to come and make a presentation in Kenya as to his views and plans for Kenyan cricket. Cricket Kenya intended to use this trip as an opportunity to interview that candidate while the other candidates will either be interviewed by phone or by Samir Inamdar when he travels to England on ICC business later in August.

Inamdar confirms that CK have shortlisted 5 possible candidates from an initial application pool of around 20. CK will not however release names at this stage so there is no way of knowing if any of the previously touted candidates are genuinely in contention. The most recent rumour from the Times of India is that Anshuman Gaekwad has been linked with the post. Previously both Balwinder Sandhu and Allan Butcher were thought to be the preferred candidates.

In terms of Martin Suji acting as coach for the Canada tour, Inamdar has this to say: "We had already decided that Martin Suji who was assistant coach under Andy Kirsten would be the preferred coach for this tour. He has been with the team for about a year and a half."

Suji is a good choice to lead the team to Canada, but even should he do a great job, it seems that we will still have a coach from abroad taking over. Hopefully CK will make the decision before Kenya's next international fixtures, time is already getting increasingly short...