Having been appointed as South Africa's batting coach for the upcoming three-match Test series in India, former Mumbai veteran Amol Muzumdar wishes to make an impact in his first major international assignment as a professional coach. 

"It means a lot. It’s an international assignment, a huge opportunity and am looking forward to it. Obviously, India in India is a big challenge but that’s the name of the game," Amol, who never represented the country at the highest level but remains one of the finest ever to have missed out, told The Hindu. 

Amol was also shortlisted among candidates for India's next batting coach but having seen Vikram Rathour succeed Sanjay Bangar for the task, he decided to grab the opportunity that the Proteas presented him with recently. 

"It seemed that (NCA batting coach) was not happening. And this is an international assignment, so I didn’t think twice before accepting it," he said. 

The 44-year-old, who had a two-decade-long first-class career that saw him pile on more than 11,000 runs at an average of 48 with 30 hundreds, attains high-performance coaching certificates from the BCCI, Cricket Australia as well as in the UK through both Lancashire and Yorkshire.

Amol's previous coaching assignments saw him shepherd batsmen in the Rajasthan Royals camp during the last IPL season, besides coaching the India under-19, U23 sides at the National Cricket Academy and working with the Netherlands national side.

"Of course doing the IPL with Rajasthan Royals has given a platform and the exposure to coaching. I hope I can translate it at the highest level," he concluded.

(Inputs from The Hindu)