The BCCI has named Gautam Gambhir as India head coach, with the former opener taking over from Rahul Dravid.

The 42-year-old takes over from batting great Dravid, who finished his stint with the T20 World Cup title in Barbados last month.

Gambhir scored over 10,000 international runs during his 13-year-long international career for India since his ODI debut in 2003.

He is the only Indian – and one of four international cricketers including Don Bradman, Jacques Kallis and Mohammad Yousuf – to have scored centuries in five successive Test matches.

Gambhir, a talented left-handed batsman who played a key part in India’s ODI World Cup win in 2011, recently coached the Kolkata Knight Riders to an IPL crown.

After he retired from playing, the usually serious Gambhir took to commentary and then dabbled in politics, becoming a lawmaker for Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

He quit politics in March to join IPL’s Kolkata, a team he led to two titles in 2012 and 2014.

Gambhir now takes over a team with heightened expectations after their T20 triumph, their fourth World Cup title and first major crown since the 2013 Champions Trophy.

India’s white-ball tour of Sri Lanka in late July will be Gambhir’s first assignment as coach of the national team.

India also awaits a T20 captain after Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli retired from the shortest format soon after a thrilling win over South Africa in the World Cup final in Barbados on 29 June.

© Agence France-Presse