Dav Whatmore

Darjeeling: With D-Day (or rather C-Day) getting closer by the hour, Board secretary Niranjan Shah has confirmed that Australian Dav Whatmore is the only one to have expressed his keenness for the Team India coach’s job.

Whatmore, who has coached Sri Lanka (twice) and Bangladesh, did so during the recent rain-marred Chittagong Test.

“Nobody else has come to us... Not even informally... However, nothing will happen before June 4,” Shah told The Telegraph on Tuesday evening.

[Around the same time, though, Madanlal — who was the coach for almost a year in 1996-97 before being replaced by Aunshuman Gaekwad — announced that he was keen, but wouldn’t approach the Board.]

June 4, of course, is when the seven-member special committee with president Sharad Pawar in the chair meets in Bangalore to select Greg Chappell’s full-time successor.

Shah is himself on the committee, as are former captains Srinivas Venkatraghavan, Sunil Gavaskar and Ravi Shastri. The remaining members are Board joint-secretary Mohinder Pandove and treasurer N. Srinivasan.

According to Shah, the next coach’s appointment would be for one year with the contract having provision for a two-year extension.

“Right now, that’s the thinking,” he said.