VVS Laxman to fill in for Gautam Gambhir as India's head coach in South Africa: Report

VVS Laxman to fill in for Gautam Gambhir as India's head coach in South Africa (ANI/PTI)

VVS Laxman will be traveling with India's white-ball team to South Africa in the capacity of head coach. The ex-India middle-order batter will fill in as incumbent national coach, replacing Gautam Gambhir, who'll be engaged in red-ball duties with the Border-Gavaskar Trophy lined up. The announcement is yet to be official but Cricbuzz reported the same citing a top BCCI official on Monday.

The T20Is get underway from November 8 in Durban and it will be followed by encounters in Gqeberha, Centurion and Johannesburg on November 8, 10, 13 and 15 respectively. The white-ball squad led by Suryakumar Yadav will leave India close to November 3, while the Test unit will fly to Down Under on November 10-11.

Laxman will be assisted by other coaches at the National Cricket Academy (NCA) in Bengaluru, like Sairaj Bahutule, Hrishikesh Kanitkar and Subhadeep Ghosh. Bahutule had served as the head coach, Kanitkar as batting coach, and Ghosh as fielding coach in the recently-concluded Asia Emerging Cup tournament in Oman, where India lost against Afghanistan in the semifinal.

Meanwhile, Sitanshu Kotak of Saurashtra and Mazhar Moidu of Kerala, who are also associated with the NCA, have traveled with the India A unit to Australia, where they will take part in two first-class matches against Australia A in Mackay and Melbourne, starting from October 31. The Ruturaj Gaikwad-led unit will then take engage in a three-day intra-squad match against Team India (Senior Men) in Perth.

BCCI had announced a 15-member squad for the four T20Is last week. While the squad featured regular T20I specialists Mayank Yadav, Shivam Dube, and Riyan Parag didn't make the cut due to injuries. Nitish Reddy, who made his India T20I debut against Bangladesh earlier this month, was picked in the red-ball squad.

There were two new additions in the form of Ramandeep Singh and Vijaykumar Vyshak. Meanwhile, Avesh Khan returns to the national fold and will spearhead India's pace battery alongside Arshdeep Singh.

Axar Patel has been dropped from the Test squad and will travel with the white-ball members to South Africa, where he is expected to get some game time. The all-rounder has spent significant time on the sidelines both in the Bangladesh Test series and the two matches India have played against New Zealand.