New Delhi: India’s next cricket coach would be Gary Kirsten.

BCCI has given a week’s time to the South African to confirm his acceptance after a successful interview on Monday evening.  

BCCI Vice-president Rajiv Shukla, said, “He was interviewed by the coach selection committee and everyone was satisfied at the end of it. It is for Gary to decide. We have asked him to confirm the offer within a week.”

Kirsten said he was happy about how things had panned out. “The interview went well,” he said, but added, “I haven’t signed anything yet.”

There are family and other commitments he needs to sort out at home before he can make the move to India but he is hopeful that will all be resolved quickly.

Kirsten said, “I am very interested, otherwise, I would not have come all the way here.”

Kirsten is a popular choice with the senior players have given their consent following a strong recommendation by the coach selection committee comprising former captains S. Venkatraghavan, Sunil Gavasker and Ravi Shastri, BCCI joint secretary Mahendra Pandove, treasurer N. Srinivasan and secretary Niranjan Shah.

After his retirement in 2004, he was South Africa’s batting coach and has been a high-performance manager with Cricket South Africa.  

The 40-year-old Kirsten played 101 Tests and scored 7,289 runs at 45.27 with 21 centuries and 185 one-day internationals scoring 6,798 runs at 40.95 with 13 centuries. He quit in 2004 and worked as Cricket South Africa’s high performance manager.

BCCI received 22 applications for the job but the coach selection committee was not impressed by the candidates.

“We had given Gavaskar, Venkatraghavan and Shastri the responsibility of identifying a coach who would be acceptable to the players and also deliver the goods,” said Mr. Shukla.

However, BCCI would look for a new coach for the India under-19 team in case of Lalchand Rajput not agreeing to coach the junior team for tri-series featuring India, Bangladesh and South Africa in South Africa – January 2 to 8, 2008, and the ICC under-19 World Cup in Malaysia from February 17 to March 2.