Ghani in race for Vidarbha coach?

NAGPUR: With Sulakshan Kulkarni opting for high-profile Mumbai job, the Vidarbha Cricket Association (VCA) has began the search for its seventh coach in nine years.
Though VCA was happy to have Kulkarni-who did excellently with the senior team-the officials didn't extend his contract which expired in April, so he was free to opt for Mumbai job.
At a time when most of the teams have already inked a deal with good candidates, Usman Ghani may be recalled as a Vidarbha coach.What may swing the deal in Ghani's favour is his knowledge about Vidarbha cricket and the performance various age category teams gave with him at the helm.
The former skipper was Vidarbha's coach in the season 2009-10 and under his regime the team did decently in both the shorter and longer formats. Vidarbha had won the Central Zone Vijay Hazare One-day Trophy in 2008 for the first time since its inception. Incidentally, it was the first time Vidarbha qualified for the knock-outs and went on to reach the semifinals.
However, he was shown the door just after one year. Since then he is involved with National Cricket Academy. Ghani guided Under-16 North Zone team to title victory in 2009. Under him, South Zone women's team also emerged champions in the last two years. Vidarbha won the Cooch Behar Plate Group Trophy in 2006-their only BCCI Trophy-under Ghani. Next year, he almost guided Under-19 team to semifinals when everyone thought that the team would be relegated to Plate group again. The likes of Shreekant Wagh, Amol Jungade, Urvesh Patel, Sumit Ruikar, Akshay Kolar, Gaurav Upadhyaya, Amol Ubarhande, Viraj Kadbe and Amit Paunikar have played under him in Under-19. In fact, Umesh Yadav played his first season in Ghani's regime.
He was back into the VCA fold last fortnight when he was appointed coach in the Residential Academy.
According to sources Ghani is most likely to take over as Vidarbha's coach again. He has already been asked to travel with the senior team for Moin-Ud-Dowlah All India Invitation Cricket tournament to be played at Hyderabad from September 2.
Sources said some of the officials are in favour of doubling Sairaj Bahutule's responsibility by making him as captain-cum-coach. However, a section of VCA is not too impressed with the idea.