Vidarbha’s two-time Ranji Trophy-winning coach, Chandrakant Pandit, has informed the Vidarbha Cricket Association (VCA) that it won’t be possible for him to continue any longer owing to ‘family’ and heath reasons.
However, the VCA top brass has requested the coach to ‘rethink’ his decision. Pandit is scheduled to meet the VCA officials in Nagpur on Friday evening, when a final decision can be expected.
“I have told the VCA that I wanted to take a break from the coaching assignments due to family commitments. But they have asked me to reconsider the decision,” Pandit told Sportstar .
VCA officials, however, told this publication that the association officials will have a long conversation with Pandit on Friday and try to convince him to stay on as the coach for another season.
"We have not heard anything from him formally. He will be in Nagpur (today) and we will definitely have a word with him about the coming season,” VCA president, Anand Jaiswal, said.
A couple of years ago, Pandit moved from Mumbai to Vidarbha and under his coaching, the side bagged consecutive Ranji Trophy and Irani Cup titles. Pandit also played a key role in reviving Wasim Jaffer’s career. The former India batsman hit a rough patch in the 2017-18 season and was thinking of quitting. But Pandit convinced him to carry on and Jaffer had a memorable outing with the Vidarbha side.
Last week, Jaffer had told this publication that he wishes to guide Vidarbha to its third consecutive Ranji Trophy title.
“I haven’t thought (about the coming season). Ideally, I would like to play for Vidarbha. We will be chasing the third consecutive title, which of course, I haven’t seen in my playing career. So, that’s something I would ideally look for,” he had said.
After guiding Vidarbha to back-to-back titles, Pandit has also attracted a few state associations. And now, with Pandit making it clear that he would not want to continue, it needs to be seen whether Vidarbha officials can actually succeed in convincing him.
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