"Biggest success" - Troy Cooley to be appointed NCA's new fast-bowling coach

Troy Cooley, one of the most renowned fast-bowling coaches in world cricket, is all set to assume charge in the position for the National Cricket Academy (NCA) in Bengaluru for a three-year period, news agency PTI reported on Wednesday.

The former Australian first-class cricketer has been a fast-bowling coach for England and Australia. He is famous for his instrumental contributions to the careers of Andrew Flintoff, Steve Harmison, Simon Jones and Matthew Hoggard, among others. The 55-year-old is also considered to be the key cog behind England's famous 2005 Ashes win, which was led by the English pace attack.

A BCCI official confirmed the development to the PTI, calling it "one of the biggest successes" for the board. The official said:

"I would say one of the biggest success for both Sourav (Ganguly) and Jay (Shah) is to convince Troy Cooley to work with India's next batch of pacers at the National Cricket Academy (NCA). We are hearing that BCCI is giving Cooley a three-year contract and he will closely co-ordinate with head of Cricket VVS Laxman."

The BCCI recently appointed former cricketer VVS Laxman as the NCA chief after Rahul Dravid's promotion to India's senior men's team head coach. Troy Cooley will replace Paras Mhambrey in the job after the latter joined Dravid as bowling coach for the Men in Blue.

Joining Laxman and Troy Cooley at the NCA will be batting coaches Hrishikesh Kanitkar, Shiv Sunder Das and Sitanshu Kotak, spin bowling coach Sairaj Bahutule and three fielding coaches Subhadeep Ghosh, T Dilip and Munish Bali.

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Troy Cooley to herald a new "fast bowlers' contract"

According to PTI, Troy Cooley will immediately begin working on a new contract system especially for the fast-bowlers called the 'Exclusive Young Pacers Contract'. This will include cherry-picking 10 young fast-bowlers who don't have national contracts from junior and first-class cricket.

They will be evaluated and prepared to be the next in line for India 'A', Under-19, and national teams. This decision is being taken keeping in mind the possible nearing retirements of the likes of Mohammed Shami, Ishant Sharma and Umesh Yadav.