India head coach Rahul Dravid urged the critics not to overreact as the Men in Blue crashed out of the race for the final of the Asia Cup 2022 after losing back-to-back matches in the Super 4s stage to Pakistan and Sri Lanka.

The ouster was confirmed when Pakistan defeated Afghanistan by 1 wicket on September 7, 2022, which also eliminated Afghanistan from the contention.

It was for the first time under Rohit Sharma’s captaincy, that India had lost two T20Is consecutively and fingers were pointed towards unnecessary changes in the playing XI and terrible selection blunders.

Ahead of the Afghanistan tie on Thursday, Dravid said that losing a couple of games on a difficult surface does not make the team terrible.

"I see my role as a support to the captain and the team. Helping the team to get the best out of themselves. But once they are on the field, it is upto the players and the captain to execute their plans and take the team forward. I think Rohit is pretty relaxed, and pretty much the whole team is. You got to put things in perspective," said Dravid to broadcasters Star Sports before the match.

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"We lost a couple of games on a pitch, on a ground that has not been easy to defend on. Just because we have lost a couple of games, it doesn't mean we are a terrible team. I think we do not need to overreact to things. It is a balanced environment, whether we win or we lose. We keep going on the same path, and the journey continues...," he added.

Afghanistan captain Mohammad Nabi won the toss and elected to field first against India in their last Super Four clash in the Asia Cup in Dubai on Thursday.

Rohit Sharma was rested with KL Rahul captaining the team and Virat Kohli opening the innings. Also, not part of the XI was leggie Yuzvendra Chahal and all-rounder Hardik Pandya. In their place, Deepak Chahar, Dinesh Karthik, and Akshar Patel were brought in.

(ANI inputs)