Ahead of India’s fifth T20I against South Africa in Bangalore, India head coach Rahul Dravid said that India’s numerous changes in skippers throughout the recent months, in fact, has helped the squad develop more leaders.
“It (coaching) has been quite exciting, it has been good fun, I must say,” Dravid told broadcasters Star Sports. “It’s been challenging as well, we have got six captains in the last eight months (smiles), which actually wasn’t the plan when I started, but it’s the nature of the number of games we are playing, it’s the nature of Covid, so I have had to work with quite a few people, it has been great fun.”
After Virat Kohli stepped down as captain after India’s Tour of South Africa, Rohit Sharma was handed over the reigns full time across formats. However, since then, Jasprit Bumrah, KL Rahul, Rishabh Pant, Bhuvneswar Kumar and now Hardik Pandya too in the upcoming T20 series against Ireland, have all got the opportunity to be part of the leadership group under Dravid – some forced because of injury and some to relieve the players of the workload. He had worked with Shikhar Dhawan as the captain too before his full-time stint in Sri Lanka.
“A lot of other guys have got an opportunity to lead, we have got opportunities to create more leaders in the group. We have constantly strived to get better, we have tried a lot of different people,” Dravid said.
Although India were defeated by South Africa 2-1 in the Test series and 3-0 in the ODI series, in Dravid’s first overseas challenge as head coach, he was confident about India’s progress, specifically in white-ball cricket.
“In the last eight months, touring South Africa was a bit of a disappointment in terms of Test cricket. Our white ball cricket has been good though, shows the character of the team. It was incredible to see the fast bowling talent we have (during the IPL), especially with few of the bowlers clocking such (fast) speed,” he added.
“A lot of youngsters got an opportunity to showcase their skills, and a lot of them came good, those are really good signs for Indian cricket, exciting times ahead.”