Sarandeep Singh appointed as Delhi's new Ranji coach, Gursharan Singh appointed as new chief selector

Former Indian senior men's selector Sarandeep Singh was, on Friday, named as the head coach of Delhi's senior men's cricket team for the domestic season. Announcing the decision, the Delhi and District Cricket Association said Sarandeep has played three Tests and five ODIs for India between 2000 and 2003. He replaces his national selection committee colleague Devang Gandhi from the 2016-2020. With this, V Arvind and Bantu Singh have retained their roles as bowling and batting coaches respectively while Kuldeep Rawat has become the new fielding coach of the senior team.

The greatest challenge before new head coach Sarandeep is to make Delhi a robust team once more after the poor show of the last season. The team is sans the services of key players Nitish Rana and Dhruv Shori, who will represent Uttar Pradesh and Vidarbha apiece, apart from injury to many fast bowlers. In the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy last year Delhi had reached the semifinals where it lost to Punjab, while failing to enter knockout stages in Vijay Hazare Trophy and Ranji Trophy. It lost at home in the Ranji Trophy to Puducherry.

Delhi are part of Elite Group D of the Ranji Trophy, comprising Tamil Nadu, Saurashtra, Railways, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Assam and Chandigarh.

The team is set to begin its Ranji Trophy season in Raipur against Chhattisgarh on October 11. Gursharan Singh, batting coach of the DDCA's High-Performance Group last season, has been made chairman of the selection committee of the senior men's team. The other members of this panel are former Delhi head coach KP Bhaskar and Rajiv Vinayak. Former India pacer Parwinder Awana has been appointed as the chief coach for the Under-16 team.

DDCA has also named a team of mentors for the state for the coming domestic season. Former India and Delhi left-arm seamer Atul Wassan will mentor men's white-ball cricket, while former India cricketer Robin Singh will mentor junior red-ball cricket. The former India women's cricketer, Reema Malhotra will be the mentor of the women's team. As expected, former India all-rounder Amita Sharma has been retained as the chairperson of the senior selection committee for the women's team. Swarana Chaddha and Sushma Chaudhary will be joining the panel. Former left-handed opener Anju Jain will stay in her place as the head coach, while Neha Tanwar and Mandeep Kaur are also set to continue in their respective positions of batting coach and fielding coach. Rishit Saini has been roped in as bowling coach.