Vikram Rathour replaces Bangar as Indian Cricket team batting coach, Arun, Sridhar retained
Mumbai, Aug 22: Former opener Vikram Rathour will be replacing Sanjay Bangar as India's new batting coach while Bharath Arun and R Sridhar were expectedly retained as bowling and fielding coaches respectively.
The senior national selection committee headed by MSK Prasad has recommended three names each for all the support staff positions and the top names in each category will be appointed after the formalities with regards to Conflict of Interest declaration is complete.
The 50-year-old Rathour, has played 6 Tests and 7 ODIs in 1996 without much success but was a domestic heavyweight for Punjab. He till few years back (2016) was a senior national selector under Sandeep Patil's chairmanship.
Bharath Arun
R Sridhar
He had earlier applied for NCA batting consultant and U-19 batting coach's position but his application was put on hold as his brother-in-law Ashish Kapoor is the chairman of U-19 selection committee.
"Vikram Rathour has got enough experience and we are convinced with his skill sets (as a coach). We will ask him to declare if he has any conflict," BCCI CEO Rahul Johri told reporters.
As per the recommendations of the selection committee, current incumbent Sanjay Bangar came second while former England batsman Mark Ramprakash was third.
"The team management had their own views but looking ahead, we felt there should be some freshness in the support staff," Johri said.
Former Mumbai Indians physio Nitin Patel, who was part of the support staff during the 2011 campaign, was back while Englishman Luke Woodhouse was appointed as the strength and conditioning (trainer) coach.
The other notable candidate to lose his job was incumbent administrative manager Sunil Subramaniam, who was removed for his alleged misbehaviour with top diplomats of the Indian government during the ongoing tour of West Indies.
Subramaniam was replaced by Girish Dongre.
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3 US troops killed, 5 seriously wounded during Iran attacks, military says
Washington (AP): Three American service members have been killed and five others seriously wounded during the US attacks on Iran, the military said Sunday, marking the first American casualties in a major offensive that has sparked retaliation from the Islamic Republic.
US Central Command, which oversees the Middle East, announced the deaths in a post on X but did not say when and where they occurred. The statement said “several others sustained minor shrapnel injuries and concussions” and were going to return to duty.
Central Command described the situation “as fluid” and said it would withhold the identities of the service members who were killed for 24 hours after their families were notified.
The US military also denied Iranian claims that the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier was struck with ballistic missiles, saying on X that the “missiles launched didn't even come close.”
President Donald Trump had warned that American troops could be killed or injured in the operation.
“The lives of courageous American heroes may be lost, and we may have casualties,” the Republican president said in a video address released early Saturday. “That often happens in war. But we're doing this not for now. We're doing this for the future.”
Following the US-Israeli strikes that killed Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and other leaders, Iran's counterattacks have struck US bases in Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates.
Iran's paramilitary Revolutionary Guard has threatened to launch its “most intense offensive operation” ever targeting Israeli and American military installations.
Before the strikes, Trump had built up the largest US military presence in the Middle East in decades. The arrival of the Lincoln and three accompanying guided-missile destroyers at the end of January bolstered the number of warships in the region.
The world's largest aircraft carrier, the USS Gerald R. Ford, and four accompanying destroyers later were dispatched from the Caribbean Sea to head to the Middle East.
The Ford was part of the US raid in Venezuela that captured leader Nicolás Maduro, who was brought to New York to face drug trafficking charges. The operation in January claimed no American lives but left seven US troops with gunshot wounds and shrapnel-related injuries.
One of those injured received the Medal of Honor during Trump's State of the Union address last week. Trump said Army Chief Warrant Officer 5 Eric Slover piloted the lead CH-47 Chinook helicopter that descended on the “heavily protected military fortress” where Maduro was staying.
Trump has launched several military operations during his second term, including strikes on members of the Islamic State group in Syria in retaliation for an ambush attack that killed two US troops and an American civilian interpreter in December.
The US military has also struck IS forces in Nigeria, after Trump accused the West African country's government of failing to rein in the targeting of Christians.
