Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) have elected the former Indian cricketer Sanjay Bangar as the head trainer of the group for the following two Indian Premier League (IPL) seasons. He was essential for the instructing staff last season as batting mentor and has been elevated now to the top post. Simon Katich was the coach when the season began recently in April. In the second leg, Mike Hesson took over halfway with Katich venturing down.
In the meantime, Hesson will keep on being the Director of Cricket Operations at RCB and he chose Bangar as the coach of the squad. The former Indian cricketer will be working with a new skipper in the upcoming season after Virat Kohli’s decision of stepping down from captaincy.
Hesson in a video released by RCB on its Twitter handle said, “We have appointed Sanjay Bangar as head coach of RCB for the next two years. Sanjay is highly respected as a coach, primarily known as a batting coach but certainly has far more expertise than just that. We are certainly lucky to have Sanjay on board with us at RCB and to be able to promote him to head coach, we are delighted with that appointment.”
The newly selected lead trainer Bangar thanked the team management for showing confidence in him for the topmost position. He informed that they as of now have begun to plan for the upcoming auction and have been surprisingly exploring groups, alongside the mentors, who have met up to settle on which players they should pick for the following season.
Bangar represented India in 12 Tests and 15 ODIs and have previously coached Kochi Tuskers Kerala in 2010.
In 2014, he served as Kings XI Punjab’s (now known as Punjab Kings) assistant coach after taking over from Darren Lehmann in the same season. He guided the team to their only final and was with the team till 2016.
“I would like to thank RCB management and the entire structure at RCB for reposing faith in me and giving me an opportunity in the position of a head coach. Our work has already begun in terms of our auction strategy and retentions and all of that. I would like to assure each one of the RCB fans that we are committed to build a strong franchise and we are committed to achieve the long-cherished dream of RCB to win an IPL Championship,” Bangar said.