Lance Klusener, the former South Africa all-rounder, is set to join the Tripura state cricket team as a coach later this week. With this massive move, the Tripura Cricket Association (TCA) is hoping to take cricket in the state to the next level.
The 51-year-old, who played the ICC Cricket World Cup 1999 final for Proteas, had a stellar international cricket career. In his 49 Tests for the country, Klusener scored 1906 runs and picked 80 wickets, meanwhile, he also got 3576 runs and 192 wickets in 171 ODIs. Afterwards, he moved into the coaching side of cricket, working with South Africa, Zimbabwe, and Afghanistan teams, among others.
On May 30, Wednesday, while talking to Indian Express about Lance Klusener’s appointment as coach, the TCA vice president Timir Chanda was quoted as saying, “We all know what kind of player he was. He was a phenomenal player in white ball cricket. He was the man of the tournament in the 1999 World Cup.”
“He is coming on June 02 at Calcutta and next day he would fly to Agartala. When we spoke to him about his assignments, he didn’t want any designation like head coach or director. He said he wants to share all cricketing experience with everyone including seniors team, junior team, girls teams etc. It’s a great thing. Everyone will get to know and get some experience from him,” said Chanda.
The former captain of Tripura also talked about the selection process for the coaching role of the state cricket team. He remarked, “We advertised in end of March and asked for coaches for various teams of the state including Under-15, Under-16, Under-19, senior teams, girls teams etc. Many prominent ex-cricketers and coaches applied. Among them, we sorted few including former Australian cricketer and Sri Lankan coach, Dav Whatmore and Lance Klusener.”