India head coach Rahul Dravid, speaking in a press conference on the eve of the final, said that the team had fulfilled its series goals and will be seeking to rotate a few players while former Pakistan batter Salman Butt has taken issue with Dravid’s remarks.
The ODI series between India and Australia has been a low-scoring but close-knit affair. After India won the opener, Australia responded with a whopping 10-wicket victory in the second match.
As Chennai would host the series finale, a lot has been said about the game. India head coach Rahul Dravid, speaking in a press conference on the eve of the final, said that the team had fulfilled its series goals and will be seeking to rotate a few players. However, former Pakistan batter Salman Butt has taken issue with Dravid’s remarks.
Butt, hitting out at Dravid, said that the entire focus should be around the third match now as the fate is the series is yet to be decided.
“Rahul Dravid said that they will keep trying different combinations. Pehle series toh jeeto! Badalna toh irrelevant hai (First win the series! Changing combinations is irrelevant). We’ve to see how you solve your batting concerns first. All this talk about team combinations… this is where the confusion starts. How much do you want to change?”
Butt said in a video on his YouTube channel, criticizing Dravid for his comments in the press conference.
“At this moment, all the conversations should be around the third ODI and how to win it. If someone asks a different question, you can say that it has got nothing to do with the match. He has talked a lot about combinations, this shouldn’t be so frequent.”
Butt further said.
Dravid expressed that he and the support staff had already gained a lot of clarity, thus he isn’t concerned about what happens in the Chennai match.
“We have to a large extent (achieved our goals in nine home ODIs). We have got a lot more clarity at the end of these nine games irrespective of what happens tomorrow. We need to keep building on that clarity,”
Dravid said.
“For us, it is now the different playing XI combinations and just ensuring that we play different combinations at times just to ensure that we can do that in the World Cup and we are not surprised by anything in the World Cup,”
he had explained on Tuesday.
