Anil Kumble gets a jumbo role as Team India coach SECOND INNINGS

The Indian cricket board on Thursday made former skipper and spin great Anil Kumble the national coach for a one-year term, ending a 16-year tradition of giving foreigners the role.

The announcement suggested that an advisory committee of Sourav Ganguly, Sachin Tendulkar and VVS Laxman prevailed in the Board of Control for Cricket in India’s (BCCI) decision to pick their former teammate from a 21-candidate shortlist, which included former cricketer Ravi Shastri.

The 45-year-old Kumble holds the Indian record for most Test and one-day international wickets — 619 and 334 respectively — but hardly has any coaching credentials.

He becomes the first homegrown coach after a string of foreign coaches since Kiwi John Wright’s appointment in 2000. The legendary Kapil Dev coached the team before Wright. “It’s a huge responsibility, HIS RECORD ready to take this role. Coaches come later, it’s always players first. Strategy will be to win,” said Kumble, who led India in 14 Tests.

Union finance minister Arun Jaitley defended key policy makers for the second time in 24 hours on Thursday as BJP parliamentarian Subramanian Swamy continued his tirade against top civil servants, embarrassing the Narendra Modi government.

“An unfair and false attack on a disciplined civil servant in the finance ministry,” Jaitley tweeted, hours after his party’s Rajya Sabha member flung corruption allegations at economic affairs secretary Shaktikanta Das on Twitter.

“I think there (is) a property deal case pending against him for assisting PC (former finance minister P Chidambaram) swallow Mahabalipuram prime locations,” Swamy tweeted.