MUMBAI: Former India and Madhya Pradesh batsman Amay Khurasia has been named as the new head coach of Kerala. "I'm very happy to serve Kerala cricket," Khurasia told TOI on Tuesday.
Khurasia, who took to coaching post his retirement in 2004, was the head coach of the Madhya Pradesh Cricket Association's academy in Indore for 10 years-a period in which he honed the skills of international players like pacer Avesh Khan, seam bowling allrounder Venkatesh Iyer, Rajat Patidar, Kuldeep Sen. He has done a level 1 coaching course at the BCCI's National Cricket Academy (NCA) in Bengaluru.
Apparently, former Australian express pacer Shaun Tait, who was Pakistan's bowling coach earlier, too was in the race to be the Kerala head coach. Khurasia was a part of India's 1999 World Cup team, and played 12 ODIs, in which he scored 149 runs@13.54. The 52-year-old former left-hander scored 7304 runs in 119 first-class matches@40.80, with 21 hundreds and 31 fifties, with a highest score of 238.
Khurasia takes charge just before Kerala, placed in Group C, face Punjab in their Ranji Trophy opener on October 11. The other teams in Group C are Bengal, Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Bihar and Madhya Pradesh. Kerala had failed to make it to the Ranji Trophy knockouts last season. Incidentally, the Kerala team includes former MP off-spinning allrounder Jalaj Saxena, besides India 'keeper-bat Sanju Samson, Baba Aparajith and Sachin Baby.
