Royal Challengers Bangalore have announced a major overhaul to their support staff, sacking Gary Kirsten and Ashish Nehra as the batting and bowling coach respectively, and bringing in Mike Hesson as director of cricket and Simon Katich as head coach.

Nehra, the former India pacer, and Kirsten, the former South Africa batsman with vast coaching experience including with India during their 2011 World Cup win, had been appointed in 2018 after former New Zealand captain Daniel Vettori was removed as head coach following the 2018 season. Both Nehra and Kirsten were part of the leadership group along with Royal Challengers' captain Virat Kohli since then. However, the team that had made the final in 2016, finished sixth in 2018 and were the wooden spooners in IPL 2019, leading to a rethink in the management.

According to Sanjeev Churiwala, the Royal Challengers chairman, the move to switch to a single-coach model became necessary because the franchise wanted to achieve "high performance".

"RCB's purpose is to be the most trusted, respected and best performing T20 franchise and hence our constant endeavour is to create a culture of excellence and high performance for every member of the team," he said in a media statement.

Churiwala said both Hesson and Katich had the necessary experience to create a "winning culture" at Royal Challengers, who have never won the IPL despite reaching the final thrice. "We believe that Mike's extensive experience in building strong teams along with Simon's powerful cricket experience will help us create a winning culture. As a result of this restructuring exercise, we will be moving to a single coach model."

More to follow...