Cape Town - The Proteas will have a new batting coach during next month's three-Test series in India.

This comes after Cricket South Africa (CSA) on Monday confirmed the appointment of Amol Muzumdar as interim batting coach for the Tests series.

Muzumdar will not be a familiar name for South African cricket fans, but he did have a distinguished first-class career that lasted 20 years.

During this time he scored more than 11 000 first-class runs, including 30 centuries, at an average of 48. It included a career-best 260 on his first-class debut for Mumbai.



"He has moved on to become one of the top coaches in India, holding high performance coaching certificates from the BCCI, Cricket Australia as well as in the UK through both Lancashire and Yorkshire," CSA said via a press statement.



Muzumdar's previous coaching appointments included being the batting coach of the Rajasthan Royals at the IPL, coaching the India under-19 and under-23 sides and acting as batting coach of the Netherlands' national side.



CSA's Acting Director of Cricket Corrie van Zyl commented: "Amol is a perfect fit for us. He brings an intimate knowledge of Indian playing conditions and the challenges our batsmen are likely to face. He also assisted us at the spin bowling camp we held recently in India and thus has already built up a good working relationship with Aiden Markram, Temba Bavuma and Zubayr Hamza."



Muzumdar added: "Cricket has always been and will continue to be my calling. Having spent 25 years on the pitch as a player I intend to spend the next 25 tapping and grooming talent on the cricket field. I am very excited about this new chapter to my coaching career."

Muzumdar replaces Dale Benkenstein, who departed after South Africa's failed 2019 Cricket World Cup campaign.