Former national selector Sarandeep Singh appointed as Delhi senior men's team coach

New Delhi, Sep 20 (IANS) Former India senior men’s selector Sarandeep Singh has been appointed as chief coach of the senior men's Delhi team for the upcoming domestic season, said the Delhi and District Cricket Association (DDCA) on Friday.

Sarandeep, who played three Tests and five ODIs for India from 2000 to 2003, replaces his former 2016-2020 national selection committee colleague Devang Gandhi in the top job of the Delhi team. V Arvind and Bantu Singh have retained their bowling and batting coach roles respectively, while Kuldeep Rawat is the new fielding coach of the senior team.

The challenge for new head coach Sarandeep will be to get Delhi back to being a formidable unit after an unpleasant last season. The side, who lost Nitish Rana and Dhruv Shorey to Uttar Pradesh and Vidarbha respectively, were also plagued by injuries to various fast bowlers.

Delhi made it to the semi-finals of the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy last year before losing to eventual champions Punjab. They then failed to enter the knockouts phase of the Vijay Hazare Trophy and the Ranji Trophy, where they suffered a shock defeat to Puducherry at home.

Delhi are in Elite Group D of the Ranji Trophy alongside Tamil Nadu, Saurashtra, Railways, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Assam and Chandigarh. The side will open its Ranji Trophy season against Chhattisgarh on October 11 in Raipur.

Gursharan Singh, who was the batting coach of the high-performance group made by DDCA last season, is the new chairperson of the senior men’s team selection committee. He’s joined in the panel by former Delhi head coach KP Bhaskar and Rajiv Vinayak. Former India pacer Parvinder Awana has been made chief coach of the men’s U16 team.

DDCA has also created a group of state mentors for the upcoming domestic season. Former India and Delhi player Atul Wassan will be the men’s white-ball mentor while ex-India pacer Robin Singh Jr is the men’s red-ball mentor. Former India cricketer Reema Malhotra will take charge as women’s team mentor.

For the women’s team, former India all-rounder Amita Sharma has been retained as the chairperson of the senior selection committee with Swarn Chadha and Sushma Chaudhry joining in. Anju Jain, Neha Tanwar and Mandeep Kaur retain their roles as chief coach, batting coach and fielding coach respectively, with Rishit Saini joining in as bowling coach.

Devender Sharma, the coach of Rishabh Pant and Mayank Yadav at the Sonnet Club, who was the wicketkeeping coach of the high-performance group last season, will be serving as a member of the junior women’s selection committee led by Neelam Yadav.

“It’s a very good opportunity for me. I will work hard to do something good for the girls so that they can perform well and do good in future. I hope that we get to unearth good young players this season,” said Devender to IANS.

Deepti Dhyani, the coach of India’s U19 Women’s T20 World Cup winning batter Shweta Sehrawat, continues in her role as Delhi U23 women’s coach. In the high-performance group, former Services batter Soumik Chatterjee, who was the third senior men’s selector last time, has been made chief batting coach while ex-Delhi pacer Sumit Narwal will be chief bowling coach.

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