Gary Kirsten says he landed the Indian coach job after just a 7-minute interview
Former Indian coach Gary Kirsten recently revealed that his interview for the role with the Indian team lasted only around 7 minutes. The South African also added that he didn't apply for the post and that he wasn't even interested in coaching when he was approached for the same.
On the Cricket Collective podcast, Gary Kirsten talked about what transpired during the process of him becoming India's coach. He stated that the great Sunil Gavaskar, who was part of the selection panel at the time, emailed him asking him to come in for an interview.
Kirsten turned up unprepared but managed to impress Ravi Shastri, who was also part of the selection panel at the time.
"I was in this board meeting with these BCCI officials, and it was quite an intimidating environment. The secretary of the board said, ‘Mr. Kirsten, would you like to present your vision for the future of Indian cricket?’. I said, ‘Well, I don’t have one.’ No one had asked me to prepare anything for it. I had just arrived there,” Gary Kirsten said.
“Ravi Shastri, who was part of the selection panel at the time, said to me, ‘Gary, tell us, what did you guys (the South African team) do to beat the Indians?’. I thought it was a great ice-breaker, because I could answer it and I answered it in 2-3 minutes without saying strategies that we kind of probably use to this day," said the 52-year-old.
“He was suitably impressed, as was the rest of the board. Three minutes later, when I had been in in the interview around seven minutes total, the secretary of the board slid across a contract to me,” he added.
Gary Kirsten: 'I thought Gavaskar's email was a hoax!'
On a lighter note, Gary Kirsten said that he didn't believe in the legitimacy of Gavaskar's first email, in which the Indian legend asked if he would consider coaching the Indian team.
He went on to show it to his wife, who said 'They must have the wrong person.'
“I thought it was a hoax. I never even answered it. Gavaskar sent me another email, and said, ‘Will you come for an interview?’. So it was a bizarre entry into the whole thing, and rightly so. I had no coaching experience or anything,” he said.
Gary Kirsten has played a crucial role in the development of the Indian cricket team, and MS Dhoni famously described him as 'the best thing to have happened to Indian cricket'. The former opener coached India to the 2011 World Cup win but decided to leave immediately after to spend time with his family.
Gary Kirsten went on to coach the South African national team apart from a coaching stint with the IPL franchise, Royal Challengers Bangalore.