Sandhu is NCA chief coach

Bombay, Madras, Calcutta, Kanpur and Delhi were on Tuesday selected as venues for the five zonal cricket academies, while former India seamer Balwinder Singh Sandhu was named chief coach of the National Cricket Academy in place of Hanumant Singh, who resigned from the post a few months back.

The NCA managing committee, which met in Pune on Tuesday, announced that Nari Contractor (Bombay-West), Krishnamachari Srikkanth (Madras-South), Arun Lal (Calcutta-East), Kailash Gattani (Kanpur-Central) and Daljit Singh (Delhi-North) have been appointed chief coaches of the respective zonal academies.

Each zonal academy, which will start functioning from April 20, and will have 20 students.

Roger Binny will continue as coach of the junior India team and will also help in the running of the NCA at Bangalore whenever he is in the city.

NCA chairman Raj Singh Dungarpur, vice-chairman Dyneshwar Agashe, Board of Control for Cricket in India secretary Jaywant Lele, Polly Umrigar, Srinivas Venkatraghavan and Brijesh Patel attended the meeting. Sunil Gavaskar was the notable absentee.

The NCA, while informing that the former India captain is still very much part of the NCA, said Gavaskar was unable to attend the meeting as he had to attend a relative's wedding in Bombay.

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