Royal Challengers Bangalore

Indian Premier League

Virat Kohli

Daniel Vettori

Gary Kirsten

Board of Control for Cricket in India

rcb 2

Changes elsewhere

Bengaluru

Vettori, McDonald, Woodhill sacked; new team soonHeads seem to be rolling in(RCB). The support staff of the(IPL) side has taken a hit but those with the blessings of skipperhave managed to survive the purge. Ashish Nehra, who had joined the team last year as a bowling mentor, will remain untouched for the time being.Mirror has learnt that head coach(New Zealand), batting and fielding coach Trent Woodhill (Australia) and bowling coach Andrew McDonald (Australia) have been sacked by the Diageo management which owns the franchise. There is a change in the administrative set-up too with Sanjeev Churiwala replacing previous boss Amrit Thomas, albeit for an entirely different reason.The new coaching staff is expected to be announced in a week’s time but Mirror learns that those coming in will be the recommendations of Kohli. As of yesterday, the favourite to take over the reins of the team is, the former South Africa coach, who had famously coached India to the 2011 World Cup. Kirsten had joined the team last year as its batting consultant.The wholesale changes, expectedly, have a lot to do the performance of the side in IPL 11. Despite a power-packed batting line-up led by world’s best Kohli and AB de Villiers, the team could manage only six wins in the 14 league matches and had finished sixth. For a side with such a high profile line-up, the performance was clearly underwhelming and the changes were not surprising. They had ended the league with 12 points from 14 games, and had failed to qualify for the play-offs.However, there are different theories over the replacements. Speculation is rife that the first preference for head coach is Sanjay Bangar but if the India assistant coach were to join the IPL team, he would be in danger of attracting the dreaded conflict of interest clause.Previously, there were attempts to make some exceptions to the Indian coaching staff, including allowing head coach Ravi Shastri to do the commentary in the IPL, but the proposal seems to have been shot down by the Committee of Administrators (CoA) of the(BCCI). With Bangar, who had previously coached Kings XI Punjab, unlikely to join, Kirsten may be the new head coach.About the changes in the administrative structure, it has been learnt that Amrit Thomas, who was looking after the team, has been internally promoted and sent to Europe with a bigger responsibility. Churiwala, who had been the CFO of the beverage firm, has been asked to take over as the new chairman of the franchise.A Diageo spokesperson refused to go into the details saying nothing has been closed and everything is speculative in nature but sources in the Indian team, RCB and IPL have confirmed to this paper about the imminent changes. Vettori did not respond to a text message from this paper and Kirsten was not available for comment as he was in the forests of Zambia on a holiday.The changes in the coaching staff are not just happening inonly. Rumour has it that Brad Hodge, the head coach of Kings XI Punjab, has been asked to leave. There may be more changes in the Punjab team but only after the board meeting of the franchise takes place.In Jaipur, the news is that Shane Warne will take over as the full-time head coach. Last year, he was with the side as a mentor but not for the entire league. There has been speculation over Ricky Ponting’s future but a team promoter told this paper that the former Australia skipper will stay on.He had signed a two-year contract with the franchise last year but the team had finished at the bottom of the table.