India vs South Africa: CSA appoints Amol Muzumdar as interim batting coach for the Test series

Former Mumbai batsman Amol Muzumdar has been appointed as the interim coach for South Africa for their three-match Test series against India. This was announced by Cricket South Africa (CSA) on September 9th, 2019. Muzumdar has been a fairly prolific run-scorer during his playing days, amassing a total of 11,167 runs in his domestic cricket career which is the second-highest run tally in Ranji Trophy history.

The former Mumbai batsman who retired from first-class cricket in September 2014, has now taken over the role of coaching various teams. He holds high-performance coaching certificates from the BCCI and Cricket Australia. He was the batting coach of Rajasthan Royals in the IPL, along with taking over the responsibility of coaching India’s Under 19 and Under 23 sides at the National Cricket Academy. In December 2013, he also took over as the batting coach of the Netherlands cricket team.

“Cricket has always been and will continue to be my calling,” said Muzumdar as quoted by CricketNext. “Having spent 25 years on the pitch as a player I intend to spend the next 25 tapping and grooming talent on the cricket field. I am very excited about this new chapter to my coaching career.”

CSA Acting Director reacts

“Amol is a perfect fit for us,” said CSA Acting Director of Cricket Corrie van Zyl. “He brings an intimate knowledge of Indian playing conditions and the challenges our batsmen are likely to face. He also assisted us at the spin bowling camp we held recently in India and thus has already built up a good working relationship with Aiden Markram, Temba Bavuma and Zubayr Hamza.”

South Africa needs to boost their overall game in every format to get their mojo back. They had a rather disappointing ICC Cricket World Cup 2019 where they failed to beat any strong team. A lot of issues including players fatigue and fitness and many big guns failing to find form leading to below-par results and performances. Proteas would want to their recent record aside and start afresh on their tour of India.

They would be playing three Test matches versus India starting from October 2, 2019, in Vizag, Pune, and Ranchi. With this being their first assignment in the ICC Test Championship and with the hosts having such a fine home record, it is a wise decision to rope in someone who is completely familiar with these conditions and who can guide many batsmen who haven’t played a Test match in India how to go about their game.

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