BCCI to appoint Australia's Troy Cooley as NCA's fast bowling coach

The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) is all set to appoint Australian coach Troy Cooley as the fast bowling coach at the NCA. The board has taken this decision with the view of grooming the upcoming young pacers in the country. Cooley is renowned as one of the best fast bowling coaches in the world and his appointment will thus be a great positive for the NCA.

Cooley witnessed his biggest moment of glory while he was England’s bowling coach during the 2005 Ashes series. England’s fast bowlers had dominated the proceedings in the series as the Australian batters struggled against them. He was credited for the success of Andrew Flintoff, Matthew Hoggard, Simon Jones, and Steve Harmison on the side.

After his good time in England, he was then roped in by Australia the next year where he worked till the 2010-11 season. Post that he joined Cricket Australia’s Centre of Excellence in Brisbane.

“I would say one of the biggest successes for both Sourav (Ganguly) and Jay (Shah) is to convince Troy Cooley to work with India’s next batch of pacers at the National Cricket Academy (NCA). We are hearing that BCCI is giving Cooley a three-year contract and he will closely coordinate with the head of Cricket VVS Laxman,” a senior BCCI official said as quoted by News 18 Cricket Next.

BCCI to introduce fast bowler’s contract 

With India’s prime speedsters Ishant Sharma, Mohammed Shami, and Umesh Yadav already in their 30s, BCCI is putting their thinking hats on for preparing the next bunch of pacers. Thus, owing to this the board has decided to introduce the ‘Exclusive Young Pacers Contract’.

BCCI president Sourav Ganguly, secretary Jay Shah, India’s head coach Rahul Dravid and NCA head VVS Laxman are understandably trying to introduce a contract that is exclusive and different from the central contract.  It is expected that Cooley and Laxman will handpick 10 young pacers who currently aren’t part of the national team and have no central contracts.

These young speedsters will be selected from the junior and first-class cricket and would be handed the ‘BCCI fast bowlers’ contract.’ They will be then assessed by Dravid and Laxman to check whether they can be fast-tracked to the India A or the senior teams.