Team India head coach Rahul Dravid admitted that working with six different captains wasn’t the actual plan when he took the coaching job last year after Ravi Shastri’s tenure ended with the 2021 T20 World Cup. Virat Kohli also stepped down as India’s T20I captain after the WC last year and later he was sacked from the ODI captaincy post also as the BCCI wanted a single captain for the white-ball formats. However, after the South Africa Test series, Kohli also relinquished the Test captaincy which made Rohit Sharma the all-format captain of India.
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However, due to the jam-packed schedule and injuries to Rohit, India have used several captains in the last few months including KL Rahul and Rishabh Pant. While Hardik Pandya is all set to lead the Men in Blue for the first time in the upcoming T20I series against Ireland.
Ahead of the fifth T20I against South Africa, Dravid talked about his coaching tenure so far with the Indian team where he opened up on working with several captains in a short period of time.
“It (coaching) has been quite exciting, it has been good fun, I must say. It’s been challenging as well, we have got six captains in the last eight months, which actually wasn’t the plan when I started, but it’s the nature of the number of games we are playing, it’s the nature of Covid, so I have had to work with quite a few people, it has been great fun. A lot of other guys have got an opportunity to lead, we have got opportunities to create more leaders in the group,” Dravid told broadcasters.
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The legendary India batter further shed light on India’s performance in recent times and said that the Test series against the Proteas was a disappointment as India lost the series after winning the opening Test match.
“We have constantly strived to get better, we have tried a lot of different people. In the last eight months, touring South Africa was a bit of a disappointment in terms of Test cricket. Our white ball cricket has been good though, shows the character of the team,” he added.
Dravid also acknowledged that the Indian Premier League has nurtured several young fast bowlers which are going to represent India in the coming years.
“It was incredible to see the fast bowling talent we have (during the IPL), especially with few of the bowlers clocking such (fast) speed. A lot of youngsters got an opportunity to showcase their skills, and a lot of them came good, those are really good signs for Indian cricket, exciting times ahead,” he added.
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