Robin Uthappa is quite a well-known name in Indian cricket. He represented the country in 46 ODIs and 13 T20Is, and was part of the team that won the inaugural T20 World Cup in 2007.
In the Indian Premier League, Uthappa turned up for various franchises, including Chennai Super Kings, Rajasthan Royals, Kolkata Knight Riders and Royal Challengers Bangalore.
Before retiring from Indian cricket last year, Uthappa won the IPL title with CSK in 2021. Back in 2014, he also lifted the IPL trophy while being associated with KKR.
Speaking to IANS, Uthappa on Wednesday (July 26) said that he is open to coaching role in the Indian Premier League if any opportunity comes his way.
“It depends, I would certainly love to be involved with the team. If opportunities do come, I’ll certainly consider it. Yeah (coach), I would love to get involved in setting up…Maybe cricket operations, or director of cricket, where I feel like, I know what it takes or give a team the best chance to win the game," said Uthappa, who is currently plying his trade in Zim Afro T10 League.
“Because I’ve been with different teams and I know how good teams work, can set structures in place which will help achieve them, something I love to do. So those opportunities, come up I’ll certainly consider them," he added.
Uthappa is currently plying his trade in Zim Afro T10 League for Harare Hurricanes and he expressed his desire to play more cricket in the coming years.
“Well for me, I want to play more cricket. I was waiting 10 months of the year to play just the IPL. Ranji Trophy was not in the picture, you know at the age of 36 you are taking the spot of the youngster. You are not playing red-ball cricket and just appearing for white-ball cricket for practice because the level is altogether different when IPL is compared to domestic cricket," he stated.
“So you know you are using that as practice. I wanted to play more cricket and hoped that by playing in this tournament I get to play a lot more tournaments. As I want to play a lot more cricket. I really love the game, I enjoy the game and have really fun with the game. I’m hoping to play a lot more cricket as time goes," he further remarked.
Uthappa slammed 53 off 23 balls as Harare Hurricanes defeated Durban Qalandars by 24 runs in Harare on Wednesday.
Commenting on the T10 format, Uthappa said, “T10 is a great initiative to introduce the game of cricket to a lot of young cricket-playing nations. It’s a great version of the game to take it in Europe and introduce cricket to them in this version and slowly bring it to them the T20 version or ODIs. It is a great version to be in the Olympics as well."
(With IANS Inputs)
