Vikram Rathour, the former India batting coach, has taken on the role of head coach at Dublin Guardians in the European T20 Premier League (ETPL) for 2026. The ETPL is Europe’s first ICC-sanctioned multi-country franchise T20 league, featuring teams from Dublin, Belfast, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Rotterdam and Amsterdam. Rathour’s appointment marked a significant move for the Indian cricket veteran into the European franchise circuit.
Rathour spoke about his experience in the inaugural ETPL season, which runs from August 26 to September 20 across Ireland, Scotland and the Netherlands. The coaching assignment has presented him with a fresh environment after his previous work with Indian cricket and a recent stint as consultant batting coach with Sri Lanka.
“It’s great learning experience. There haven’t been any challenges, I would say. I find it really exciting, and I’ve been really happy. See, my idea of coaching is to keep improving and learning as a coach,” Rathour said during a media interaction organised by ETPL.
“In any new environment, working with a foreign league and foreign players—because my experience in the past has been working in Indian cricket mostly—this is an opportunity to work with all foreign players, except for Ashwin and Vijay Shankar in this team,” Rathour said.
Rathour mentioned that he is grateful to his players and the members of the support staff for having his back and asserted that the experience will help him improve as a coach.
“That makes it really exciting for me because that’s something I haven’t done before. As I said earlier, I’ve been extremely fortunate with the kind of team and the support staff that we have around us. It has been really good so far; I’m learning a great deal, and I’m sure this experience will also make me a better coach in times to come,” Rathour said.
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Dublin Guardians have played six matches so far. They lost the first five but finally ended their losing streak on Wednesday, September 9, beating Belfast Wolves by eight wickets.
