Team India’s preparation for the ongoing ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup seems to be on track. The Men in Blue won the Asia Cup 2023 last month and followed it with a 2-1 ODI series win over Australia.
India will open their World Cup campaign against five-time champions Australia at MA Chidambaram Stadium, Chennai on Sunday (October 7).
Ahead of the game, India head coach Rahul Dravid has said that he has done his bit in preparing and grooming his players and he now wants Rohit Sharma and his men to execute their skills on the big stage.
“Honestly once the game starts, it's the captain's team. It's the team that needs to take it forward, they need to execute it, they need to do the job,” Dravid said in a press conference on Friday (October 6).
“As a coach I see my work in the lead up to the games, in the lead up to this World Cup, trying to get the squad we got eventually. Building up the team, building up the squad and then hoping to allow the players to play and express themselves to have fun,” he added.
Just like the World Cup-winning captain MS Dhoni, Dravid is also a firm believer in controlling the controllables phrase.
“Yeah... I mean I guess you recognise as a coach that once the game starts, once the guys cross the line, there is only so much you can do. As coaches, we don't score a single run or take a single wicket in the tournament. All we can do is really support the players.”
“A lot of our work, to be very honest with you, is in the days leading up to these games. It's in the practice sessions, hopefully the kind of mind space we get the people in and supporting the captain and the team in whatever way we can in the lead up,” he said.
When asked about the safe total in the tournament, Rahul Dravid came up with a rather cheeky response.
“Just one more than the opposition, I think will be very safe [laughs]. Look, it's hard to tell, hard to predict, in each condition. And that's going to be the beauty of this World Cup,” he said.
“So many venues that these matches are going to be played in. So many different wickets on those venues. Some of the squares…even in India, you have red soil, black soil, you have a mix of red and black. Each one is going to be unique. I don't think you can go and say that this is going to be a safe total, that's not going to be a safe total,” the coach explained.
Under his captaincy, India endured a dismal 2007 World Cup campaign but Dravid has completely moved on from that debacle.
“It's a long time since I was a player. I almost forgot that I was actually a cricket player at one stage to be very honest with you,” he said.
“I have moved on from that. I don't think of myself as a player anymore. Maybe that's the mind space difference... I'm focussed on helping the group to do the best they can.
“I mean in the end that's the job of the support staff, the job of the coach really is to support the vision of the captain and help him execute his vision over the course of the next couple of months and hope we can do that really well.”
(With PTI Inputs)
