India head coach Rahul Dravid has hinted at the possible futures of senior players like Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli, and KL Rahul when it comes to T20Is, as he said that the Indian team is in a process of rebuilding for the next T20 World Cup which will be played in 2024.
Dravid felt inexperience was one of the main reasons for India’s 16-run defeat to Sri Lanka in the second T20I in Pune as the hosts fielded a near completely different side than the one which played the T20 World Cup less than two months back.
“They (youngsters in the team) are very skillful, but as they are learning, it’s a tough (job). It’s not easy learning in international cricket and you have to learn on the job. So, we’ve got to have a little bit of patience with these guys,” Dravid said at the post-match press conference on Thursday.
While continuing to speak on the same matter, he added that youngsters will be handled patiently and will continue to get support from the team management and hinted that seniors like Rohit Sharma, KL Rahul, and Virat Kohli might no longer get a chance to play in T20Is.
“For us, it was a slightly different scenario (in the T20I series against Sri Lanka) in the sense that from the last game, we played against England in the semifinal of the World Cup, we’ve probably only 3-4 boys in the playing XI (now). So, we are in a slightly different stage of looking at the next cycle of (the) T20 (World Cup). So, a slightly younger team,” he added.
He also said that since the focus this year will be on the ODI World Cup, it is the right time to give the youngsters as many chances as possible to cement their spots in the Indian T20I team.
Dravid said: “The good thing is this year we have the (50-over) World Cup. Because a lot of focus will be on the 50-over World Cup, and the World Test Championship, at least the T20 games that we have, it probably gives us the opportunity to try out a lot of the younger guys.”
Hopefully, give them opportunities and just back and support them. I think we’ve got to be patient with a lot of these young kids. If you look at this team, there are a lot of youngsters playing, especially our bowling attack. We all need to be patient with them and we need to be understanding that games like this can happen.”
Dravid defended the failures of Ishan Kishan, Shubman Gill, and debutant Rahul Tripathi and asserted that they’ve only played a couple of games, and no chopping and changing will take place for the Rajkot game.
“I haven’t thought about the third match right now. Once we go there we will have a look at the wicket. But I don’t expect there to be too much of experimenting. The boys we are already playing (with) are very young. The opening pair of Ishan and Shubman have only played two matches, so we are not going for (any) chopping and changing (of) people too much, unless, of course, there are some injuries,” said Dravid.
“Of course, they are improving… we keep trying to help and support them technically with whatever we can in terms of support and also just creating the right environment for them to be able to get the best out of their skills,” he signed off.
(PTI inputs)
