Rohit Sharma, KL Rahul and Virat Kohli often attract criticism for their cautious approach while batting in T20 cricket but India head coach Rahul Dravid understands their quality and expects them to give "good, positive starts" heading into the World Cup.
During the recently held IPL 2022 season, the troika came under the scanner for being circumspect in the powerplay overs. However, Dravid hinted that he is in no mood to tinker with the top three going forward.
Notably, Rohit and Kohli have been rested for the upcoming five-T20I series against South Africa, starting June 9.
"We know our top three's quality. They are top class. There will be a slightly different top three in this series but what we are looking for (in general) is a good positive start and playing according to the situation," Dravid said in a press conference ahead of the first T20I.
"If it's a high-scoring game, then obviously you want your players to maintain the strike-rate. If wicket is more challenging, then they have to respond to that as well," he added.
Dravid stressed on the role clarity, saying it might be different from what players are used in their respective IPL franchises.
"In general, in T20 you want people to play positively and these people do that. As I said their roles might be slightly different to what we expect of them.
"We will be giving them a lot of clarity as to what their roles are. And I'm confident anyone in the top three will be able to play the role according to the situation of the match," he remarked.
The India coach also shared his thoughts on the workload management of cricketers and stated that expecting all-format players to be available for every series would be unfair.
"(KL) Rahul has captained before, we are clear on a lot of things. Rohit is an all-format player and it is unrealistic to expect all (all format players) to be available for every series," he said.
"We need to ensure that they are fit for all the big tournaments and are peaking then. We also have the Test match in the UK spilling from last year and we need to ensure we have the best side," Dravid said.
"With the kind of busy schedule we have there are times we need to rest our big players. It gives youngsters opportunities and increases the depth of our squad," he explained.
According to Dravid, the key is to maintain the perfect balance.
"It is a balance between managing the workload of some of the players, especially who have been a part of all three formats of the game for us in the last six months. We will do that over the next six months.
"We have rested a few players, that's part of the process. We'll continue to do that for a little bit till the T20 world Cup, till we freeze everyone. It is important to manage people through a very busy calendar," he said.
(With PTI inputs)
