In their last encounter of the Super 12 stage against Zimbabwe on Sunday (November 06) at the MCG, Team India made one change to its playing XI. Rishabh Pant was brought in for Dinesh Karthik. This was Pant’s first match of the tournament.

Despite Pant's early dismissal, head coach Rahul Dravid insisted that it was important to give the young southpaw a chance to play so that there would always be options available.

SEE ALSO: ‘I do same thing in the nets,’ Suryakumar Yadav shares secret behind his lap shots and paddle sweeps

The 25-year-old came into bat at number 5 on Sunday but couldn’t last long in the middle as in an attempt to clear the ropes, he was caught in the deep off Sean Williams’ bowling thanks to a brilliant catch by Ryan Burl after scoring 3 off 5 balls.

“A couple of the things that we did want to achieve was to try and bat first if we got the opportunity. We needed to win the toss for that. Just because, honestly we had bowled first against Pakistan when we came here, we just wanted to experience what it was to sort of set a score in these kinds of conditions." Dravid said in the post-match press conference.

Additionally, the coach mentioned that batting first allows the team to employ all 20 of their allotted overs in an attempt to post a good score.

“Also, we felt that if we batted first, it would give us an opportunity to play 20 overs and just get into that ability of still trying to get a par, par-plus score batting first. Then, sometimes it gives us the opportunity, as well, to play Rishabh, keeping obviously this game in mind as well but just keeping the future in mind, as well, just opening up our options."

“Everyone is available for selections; just because somebody missed out on this game doesn’t mean that we can’t go back to him and we can’t decide on. We might go the same way. We might go a different way, as well. We just wanted to ensure that we have our options open, giving Rishabh an opportunity to have game time, which was really important," he added.

“He was probably the only player in our team who hadn’t played a game after Western Australia. We played a couple of games in western Australia where he played, and then he didn’t play the practice game. He was supposed to play the second one and that got washed out in Brisbane (against New Zealand), and then he’s not played."

“So we just wanted to ensure that he also gets some game time so that at least all of our 15 have got some amount of game time in both the practice games and this tournament. If we have a whole set of 15 to choose from, we’ll pick what we think is the best XI for the day against the opposition looking at the pitch," added Dravid.

When questioned why Pant didn’t feature in the starting XI of the first four games of the Super 12 round, the former cricketer defended the left-hander by saying that the team had never lost confidence in him and that he has been putting in a lot of effort in the nets to keep himself prepared for opportunities.

“In a sense, it’s not that we ever lost confidence in Rishabh. We’ve got confidence in all of our 15 players who play here. It’s only 11 guys who can play, and it depends on the combinations that you have. The very fact that they are here and they’re part of the World Cup means that we have a lot of confidence in them. It means that anytime they can be called on to play in the XI."

"That’s really the role of when you pick 15 players and you pick 15 from so many other options that you have. That means you’ve actually got a lot of confidence in this 15. Yes, you can only play 11 at a time and some people sometimes miss out and don’t have to play."

"But again, Rishabh is someone that as a lot of you would have been seeing, would have been traveling with us, he’s been batting a lot in the nets, he’s been hitting a lot of balls, doing a lot of fielding practice and sort of keeping practice and keeping himself ready," Dravid remarked.

The celebrated batter continued by saying he wouldn't overthink about Rishabh's inability to get going against Zimbabwe because he was dismissed while trying to take the spinners on which was the right approach.

“The opportunity came for us today to give him an opportunity and to play him in this game, and it didn’t kind of work out today, but absolutely I’m not bothered about that at all because I think he took the right option. His role was to take on the left-hand spinner which was there, and sometimes it comes off, and sometimes it doesn’t."

“I don’t think we judge people on one game, and sometimes whether we play them or not is not based on one game. Sometimes it’s just matchups, what we think would be something that we might need here or going ahead, as well, into the next part of the tournament; what are the skills we might need against which are the kind of bowlers we might come up against. So a lot of things go into these kinds of decisions."

Rohit Sharma and Co. thrashed Zimbabwe by 71 runs having already sealed a spot in the semifinals. They will now face England in the second semifinal at the Adelaide Oval.

(IANS INPUTS)