Kumble gets Bindra’s indirect support on rift
He didn’t take any names but the reference to Indian cricket’s latest drama was hard to miss as India’s lone individual Olympic gold-medallist Abhinav Bindra revealed how he stuck to a coach he hated, for 20 years.
Within hours of chief cricket coach Anil Kumble’s resignation following a rift with captain Virat Kohli, Bindra tweeted about his own equation with German Uwe Riesterer, a longtime member of his coaching staff.
“My biggest teachers was coach Uwe. I hated him!But stuck with him for 20 years. He always told me things I did not want to hear.#justsaying,” Bindra, who is now retired, tweeted.
Riesterer was part of Bindra’s support staff during his gold medal-winning performance at the 2008 Beijing Olympics. He was there with him at last year’s Games as well where he finished 4th in the 10m air rifle event before calling it a day.
Kumble had conceded that a fallout with Kohli was the reason behind his decision to resign as India’s cricket coach, claiming that their partnership had become “untenable” despite attempts to resolve the misunderstandings.
In his resignation letter to the BCCI, the 46-year-old former captain said he was taken aback when he was told about Kohli’s “reservations” about his coaching style. Kumble’s decision to step down came just two days after India’s embarrassing loss to Pakistan in the ICC Champions Trophy final.
His one-year contract expired at the end of the Champions Trophy but he was given the option to travel with the team to the West Indies.