Cricket: "Duncan Fletcher to succeed Gary Kirsten as Indian Coach"

The wait is over for the new coach of World Chapions India. Indian Cricket board BCCI (Board of cricket control India) has named Duncan Fletcher as the new coach. He will succeed the very successful Gary Kirsten under whom India won the most prestigious World cup recently.

Expectations will be hell high to take over the reigns form Gary Kirsten as Gary Kirsten has set very high standard with his coaching, under whom India became Number one in tests and won the 2011 World cup.

Duncan Fletcher was born on September 27th 1948 in Salisbury, Zimbabwe which is now called Harare. His complete name is Duncan Andrew Gwynne Fletcher, In short DAG Fletcher. He represented Zimbabwe in six One day Internationals. He was the first person to captain Zimbabwe and that to in a worldcup. His international representation was just the worldcup in 1983 where he captained and steered Zimbabwe to their first One Day International victory on their debut against the mighty Australians. In his 6 innings he scored 2 fifties against Australia and West Indies. The former was most crucial as they defeated Australia in their inaugural debut into the international arena.

He was the first foreign coach for England from 1999 to 2007. Under his coaching England won the most prestigious Ashes against Australia after 18 years and rewrote England fortunes with his exceptional coaching in 8 years to bring England team from low level to top 3 in tests. After loosing the ashes in 2007 with 0-5 margin to Australia and disappointing world cup in 2007 which led to his resignation. He was credited as one of the best coach england has ever produced.

His contract is for 2 years and due to prior commitments he might not join the indian team for the West Indies series which is to follow soon after the IPL 2011. All the best to Duncan Fletcher, and lets hope he keeps the form of Indian team intact and India will be number one in ODI and sustain their number one position in test arena.