Imagine Sachin Tendulkar teaching Shubman Gill how to perfect the straight drive.
That may not be happening any time soon, but its chess equivalent is. Five-time World champion Viswanathan Anand is all set to don the coach’s hat.
He has joined hands with WestBridge Capital to start a training programme.
The WestBridge Anand Chess Academy has taken on board five of India’s most promising players, to begin with.
Nihal Sarin, R. Praggnanandhaa, Raunak Sadhwani, D. Gukesh and R. Vaishali will get to train with one of the greatest chess players of all time.
Anand said he was looking forward to the experience of being a coach.
“I decided to take up this because I wanted to see more top players in FIDE’s rating list,” he told The Hindu during an online interview on Wednesday.
“When you look through the list, you will see a lot of Indian names all over, but you will also find that we are not as dominant as I would like us to be.”
He added he was inspired by a couple of examples.
“I am aware of the role played by Mikhail Botvinnik’s academy in the former Soviet Union, which produced World champions Garry Kasparov and Anatoly Karpov and helped that country dominate the world,” he said. “Then there was this fellowship in the USA to encourage young chess players to take year off studies and study chess.”
Sandeep Singhal, WestBridge’s co-founder and managing director, said the company was thrilled to partner with Anand.