Whether Rahul Dravid can be termed as the ‘new India coach’ or not is a question that could be a tough one to answer, but what will delight the fans of the former captain and one of India’s most admired cricketer is that he has reached Sri Lanka with the national team and has already started his operations hands-on.
India’s limited-overs series consisting three ODIs and as many T20Is will start on July 13, for which the Indian cricket team arrived in Colombo on Monday.
The team will be adhering with strict covid-19 protocols before starting to train for the series in which they are expected to fire against the struggling home team, which has been recently hit by a few controversies apart from poor on-field performances.
This is a completely different and young Indian cricket team under the captaincy of veteran opening batsman Shikhar Dhawan and coaching of Dravid, while the main team is in England getting through a lull phase of holiday following their defeat in the final of the World Test Championship, before they start preparing for the Test series.
Dravid has previously coached the India U-19 team and his experience suggests that most of the players, including the uncapped ones, are likely to get their debuts on the Sri Lanka tour. However, Dravid has made it clear that winning in Sri Lanka will be the top priority while the team management will want to give chances to as many players as possible.
Dravid spoke with the media in India before leaving for Sri Lanka and said,
”There are a lot of people in the squad who are pushing for places ahead of the T20 World Cup coming up, but the key goal, and we’ve had discussions around it, is to try and win the series. That is the primary objective. Hopefully if people can get the opportunity to put in some good performances in the course of us trying to win the series, they will give themselves the best chance of knocking on the doors of the selectors.”
The former India No 3 batsman said it is important for the young and uncapped players to enjoy their time and learn from the experience.
“There are a lot of young kids, even if they don’t play, it’s a great opportunity to be on a trip with the Indian team and interact with seniors like Shikhar (Dhawan, the captain), Bhuvneshwar (Kumar, the vice-captain), Hardik (Pandya). There’s a lot they can learn from that experience. The young boys coming on this trip, they’ll all be keen to do well and set some sort of markers for the selectors,”
he said.