The Indian cricket team is set to receive an addition to the support staff as the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has decided to add Sitanshu Kotak, currently the India A head coach, as the batting coach. Kotak will join head coach Gautam Gambhir from the home series versus England which features five T20Is and three ODIs.

It is understood that Gambhir had asked for a batting coach during the BCCI review meet following the Border-Gavaskar Trophy and the Indian cricket board has agreed to the request.

Kotak has been part of the India A set-up and National Cricket Academy (NCA) for a very long time.
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“Coach Gambhir had asked for a batting coach during the review meeting. Discussions were ongoing since then and now Kotak will be added to the support staff,” said a senior BCCI official who was part of the meeting which also featured captain Rohit Sharma.

Considering how the batters have struggled in the last two Test series, the Indian cricket board also felt the need to have a full time batting coach.
“Most of our batsmen [batters], including the seniors, have struggled badly in the last two series. There’s clearly a need to strengthen the support staff of the Indian men’s cricket team from the batting point of view,” says a reliable source in the BCCI.
Kotak was the India A head coach during the tour of Australia in November last year, and the head coach of the Jasprit Bumrah-captained Indian team which toured Ireland in August 2023.
The 52-year-old former left-hander, who captained Saurashtra, was a colossus in domestic cricket. He played from the 1992-93 season to 2013 and scored 8061 runs in 130 first-class matches at an average of 41.76, with 15 hundreds and 55 fifties.
Post retirement, the seasoned cricketer has entered full-time coaching and after coaching Saurashtra, became a batting coach at the NCA in Bengaluru. For the last four years, he has been regularly appointed by the BCCI as the India A head coach, as the side went on tours to Bangladesh, South Africa and Australia. He was also the assistant coach of the now defunct Gujarat Lions in IPL 2017.
Currently, India’s coaching staff, consisting of Morne Morkel (bowling coach), Abhishek Nayar (assistant coach), Ryan ten Doeschate (assistant coach) and T Dilip (fielding coach), besides the head coach Gautam Gambhir, doesn’t have a batting coach, though Nayar’s role is focused on working with the batters.
After India were blanked 3-0 at home by New Zealand and lost 3-1 in the Border-Gavaskar Trophy in Australia, the role of the support staff of the team has come under heavy scrutiny, particularly with players like Virat Kohli, skipper Rohit Sharma and Shubman Gill failing to shrug off their poor form.