Sanath Kumar (born 12 December 1962) is a former Indian first-class

cricket Cricket is a Bat-and-ball games, bat-and-ball game played between two Sports team, teams of eleven players on a cricket field, field, at the centre of which is a cricket pitch, pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two Bail (cr ...

er and the former head coach of Assam,

Karnataka Karnataka ( ) is a States and union territories of India, state in the southwestern region of India. It was Unification of Karnataka, formed as Mysore State on 1 November 1956, with the passage of the States Reorganisation Act, 1956, States Re ...

and Baroda. Kumar played for Karnataka cricket team from 1985/86 to 1988/89. He identified the potential of Hardik Pandya who used to bowl leg spin at that time, as a fast bowling allrounder while coaching Baroda

Career

Kumar was a right-arm medium pace bowler who represented Karnataka cricket team in 11 first-class and 4

List A List A cricket is a classification of the Limited overs cricket, limited-overs (one-day) form of the sport of cricket, with games lasting up to eight hours. List A cricket includes One Day International (ODI) matches and various domestic competit ...

matches between the 1985/86 and 1988/89 seasons. Kumar took up coaching in 1990 and since 1992 trained various age-group levels of Karnataka team such as under-15, under-17, under-19 and under-22. He had worked as a talent resource development officer in the KSCA Academy. He had also coached Pahang state cricket team in Malaysia in 1994. Kumar became the coach of the Assam cricket team before the 2005/06 season. In 2009, he returned to coach his home team Karnataka. Under his coaching, Karnataka reached the final of the 2009–10 Ranji Trophy and the semifinals in the following season. He took over as the head coach of the Baroda cricket team at the start of the 2011/12 season. Baroda won the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy twice during his tenure. Hardik Pandya started bowling relatively late, Initially, he dabbled in leg-spin, but it was coach Sanath Kumar who saw his potential as a fast bowler. After the 2013/14 season he quit his role with Baroda, citing the need to "spend time with family" as the reason for the decision. He returned to coach Assam from the 2014/15 season. Kumar had also served as an assistant coach of the Indian Premier League franchise Royal Challengers Bangalore. In August 2018, he was appointed as the coach for Meghalaya cricket team.

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* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Kumar, Sanath 1962 births Living people Indian cricketers Karnataka cricketers Indian cricket coaches Cricketers from Mysore