Duncan Fletcher is appointed as Indian cricket team coach

Former Zimbabwe captain and the former England coach Duncan Fletcher has been appointed as the new coach of Indian cricket team.BCCI secretary N Srinivasan here on wednesday declared his name.There were also few other names in the list of this competition.Former New Zealand captain Stephen Fleming , former Australian cricketer Justin Langer were also giving stiff competition to Fletcher.BCCI has appointed him for two years and he will join Indian team in june 2011 before WestIndies tour..Fletcher's appointment, at 62, to coach a celebrity-studded India side, fresh from a World Cup victory, could not be more intriguing. Yet it is India's media circus, rather than the cricket, that may prove to be his biggest challenge – a fact immediately recognised by Michael Vaughan, the captain alongside Fletcher when England won the 2005 Ashes series.

"Duncan will work well with all the talent," Vaughan tweeted today. "His biggest challenge will come from the media."

When Fletcher took over as England's first foreign coach in 1999, the crowd at the Oval had just chanted that England were the worst Test side in the world, a fact backed up by the official rankings. But his technical insights, organisational skills and uncompromising insistence upon a team ethic soon began a transformation.

India offers an entirely different challenge. India are the best Test side in the world, World Cup winners and believe, not entirely justifiably, that the cash-rich IPL makes them natural leaders in Twenty20 as well, even if England happen to be world champions.

Fletcher therefore inherits not failure, a side desperate for guidance, but a team of strong personalities already certain of their ability, their every act followed by an insatiable and, at worst, fanciful, media. This celebrity culture will test his patience on a daily basis.

How Fletcher deals with such a challenge, in what is likely to be his last major coaching role, could influence whether he retires with his reputation confirmed as one of the leading cricket coaches of the modern era.

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