Former India captain and coach Ajit Wadekar slammed the Board of Control for Cricket in India for looking for a foreign coach to replace John Wright.
"I don't understand why they are looking for a foreign coach when someone like Sandeep Patil is aspiring to be India's coach," said Wadekar, who coached the team between 1992 and 1996.
"Sandeep has played almost at the same level, if not better, than [Bangladesh coach] Dav Whatmore or [former Australia captain] Greg Chappell," he added.
Wadekar said it makes no sense having a foreign coach "when you have former players like Patil, Kapil Dev or Sunil Gavaskar, who were great players in their time".
"Basically coaching or captaining an Indian team is different; it's not a joke. We have different cultures, which a foreign coach will find difficult to understand. We have different players coming from all over the country, speaking different types of languages, different religion; so it is very difficult. Only a past Indian cricketer can understand these things.
"If it comes to technology, then it can be easily made available by sending the coach to any part of the world to learn those technologies and then come back."
He said Patil deserves the job considering his exploits with Kenya, whom he took to the World Cup semi-finals in 2003.
"He has also performed when assigned with the India 'A' or the Under-19 teams. I can't understand why he is not being considered. Maybe, they are waiting for him to grow more grey hair," he said, with a mischievous giggle.
However, he was effusive in his praise of Wright, saying the New Zealander, whose contract ended at the conclusion of the Pakistan series, had done a lot for the Indian team.
"He brought a lot of confidence in the senior players and also encouraged a number of youngsters. He instilled a lot of discipline in the team. He kept a very low profile and never looked for publicity. He performed his job very sincerely and very seriously."
To a question whether Wright, who was with the Indian team for four-and-a-half years, is India's best-ever coach, he replied: "Yeah, I suppose so. He did an extremely good job. Along with Ganguly, he brought so much glory to the country.
"He was also liked by the players, which is very important for a coach. During his regime, Ganguly achieved so many important victories, and he is now rated as India's best-ever captain. Some of that credit should go to Wright also."
Wadekar was of the opinion that things have changed a lot since he stepped down as India coach in 1996.
"The players have become very professional now. They need help in all aspects now. Those days you only had a single coach who took care of all things; now you have got a bowling coach, a coach for fielding. The support staff has made the coach's job much easier now."
