Sharing his two cents on fielding two different squads simultaneously, Rahul Dravid, India’s head coach for the Sri Lanka tour, on Sunday (June 27) said a lot more discussions are required regarding its continuation in the future.
During the white-ball tour of Sri Lanka next month, Shikhar Dhawan will lead the Indian squad, which features youngsters like Sanju Samson, Ishan Kishan, Suryakumar Yadav among others.
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Another set of Indian players are currently on the tour of UK. The Virat Kohli-led contingent recently played the World Test Championship (WTC) final against New Zealand in Southampton and they will now face England in the five-Test series, beginning August 4.
"This is a unique situation in terms of quarantines and rules that have led to this situation. It's very hard to predict what will happen even on a month-on-month basis," Dravid said during a pre-departure press conference.
"With quarantines as structured as they are and travel restricted, at least in the short term this plan allows you to complete tours and engagements.
"India probably had no option for this tour. I'm not sure if it is a long-term solution though, because there are many more stakeholders involved: other boards, broadcasters, sponsors, media rights," he added.
Dravid, however, admitted that this move has come as a respite for some players who were playing all the formats amid the pandemic with all travel restrictions in place.
"Certainly, in the short term, this could ease pressure because it's becoming difficult for the same set of players to go through all the restrictions in place to play all formats. So yes, in the short term a good idea but for the long term, it'll need lot more discussions," Dravid remarked.
India’s tour of Sri Lanka, comprising three ODIs and as many T20Is, will be held in Colombo from July 13 to July 25.
India's squad for Sri Lanka tour:
Shikhar Dhawan (Captain), Prithvi Shaw, Devdutt Padikkal, Ruturaj Gaikwad, Suryakumar Yadav, Manish Pandey, Hardik Pandya, Nitish Rana, Ishan Kishan (Wicket-keeper), Sanju Samson (Wicket-keeper), Yuzvendra Chahal, Rahul Chahar, K Gowtham, Krunal Pandya, Kuldeep Yadav, Varun Chakravarthy, Bhuvneshwar Kumar (Vice-captain), Deepak Chahar, Navdeep Saini, Chetan Sakariya.
Net Bowlers: Ishan Porel, Sandeep Warrier, Arshdeep Singh, Sai Kishore, Simarjeet Singh.
(With ANI inputs)
