kochi kerala cricket associations kca search for a new head coach for their mens cricket team ended on tuesday with the appointment of former india offspinner margashayam venkataramana venkataramana who represented india in a test against west indies and in an odi against new zealand has been handed a twoyear contract venkataramana had coached tamil nadu in the previous two seasons and was replaced by sulakshan kulkarani in february this year a bcci level 3 coach venkataramana has also coached the singapore national team for five years he was also the head coach of dindigul dragons in tnpl toi was the first to report on may 27 the state cricket body was looking to replace tinu yohannan as the head coach of the state team tinu has been assigned the task of overseeing the activities of kcas highperformance centrefor the first time in its history the kca had advertised for the post of head coach of its mens and womens cricket teams the state body had received numerous applications and had shortlisted four coaches for interviews among those who were invited for interviews were venkataramana mansur ali khan karnataka ajay ratra haryana and d vasu tamil nadu while the first three came in person to attend the interviews before the kca panel last week ratra appeared via video conferenceafter conducting the interviews the kca further pruned the list to two with venkataramana and mansur ali khan emerging as the front runners the kca finally zeroed in on venkataramana considering his expertise as a spinbowling coach and his willingness to spend a longer timeperiod with the kerala players venkataramana satisfied the requirement that kca had set for the new coach he is very experienced and that will come in handy when it comes to grooming youngsters in the team said kca secretary vinod s kumarthe former offspinner said he was eagerly looking forward to the new challenge my approach would be resultoriented and it would be the same with the kerala team kerala players have a lot of potential my endeavour would be to make optimum use of that potential it would be exciting working with these players kca is planning some tournaments in the coming months and there will a camp then i will have a better idea on how to go about things venkataramana told toiin his playing career venkataramana played 75 first class matches and claimed 247 wickets he also played 30 list a games and took 36 wickets however venkataramana will join the kerala team only after buchi babu cricket tournament owing to prior commitments former kerala u19 coach m rajagopal will lead the coaching team of kerala for the tournament in chennai starting on august 15