Rahul Dravid not available for Indian senior men, says Vinod Rai

The Cricket Advisory Committee comprises Sourav Ganguly, Sachin Tendulkar, and VVS Laxman had named Shastri as the head coach and announced that Zaheer Khan and Rahul Dravid would act in the roles of the bowling coach and as batting consultant respectively. But later, Shastri batted for his own choices for his core team and requested the BCCI appoint Bharat Arun and Sanjay Bangar for the bowling and batting coach respectively. While confusion was hovering over Dravid and Zaheer's appointments, Rai clarified that Dravid will not be available for the post.

"Dravid's contract issues are all sorted. He has two-year full-time contract (India A and U19). He has said that he is not available for tours abroad (senior team). He does not want to hang around," Rai said after his meeting with BCCI officials, as reported by PTI.

On the other hand, Zaheer’s role is still in suspense. Zaheer Khan had captained the Delhi Daredevils in the last season of the Indian Premier League while mentoring them as the bowling coach. Rai also told about the developments over Zaheer’s case.

"Earlier, there was no system in place. We are trying to set templates. Zaheer is very much in scheme of coaching various Indian teams but we can only have him after we have a contract in place.

"We can't just tell Zaheer okay we give you a three month or three week contract and these are conditions. We have to also look into his IPL contract, media commitments," Rai said.

However, BCCI CEO Rahul Johri believed that Zaheer is likely to be available for India’s tour of South Africa which will be played later in the year.

"Ravi is in touch with Zaheer. In any case, he will be available not before South Africa series," Johri said.