Youngsters are Getting More Recognition from the Selectors – Rahul Dravid

Jan 9, 2019 at 3:53 PM

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Youngsters are Getting More Recognition from the Selectors – Rahul Dravid

Former Indian skipper and arguably India’s most celebrated Test batsman, Rahul Dravid has been the coach of the Junior Level India and India-A sides from the past two years.

Under his guidance, many of the young guns have gone on to represent India at the highest level. The effort to rope in Dravid as the head coach of the junior teams rather than the senior one has paid rich dividends, as the youngsters are getting more recognition from the selectors. In fact, it was Dravid who opted for the coaching job of the junior Indian teams for the betterment of Indian cricket.

Dravid who is regarded as one of the best batsmen the country has ever produced agreed to the fact that being a great player and being a great coach is two different things, and it is not necessary that a great player would go on to become a great coach. He said coaching is more of managing people.

“I have really enjoyed coaching since the past two years, and it has been a great learning experience. However, just because I played cricket for a long time wasn’t enough to qualify as a good coach. Playing is one thing and managing people is actually a different ball game altogether, but that is the beauty of coaching. One of my big focuses in trying to coach teams is that I don’t try to put an effort into coaching cricketers, but try to coach people as well. Since I have been through the journey of playing U19 cricket before, I do understand that they are under a lot of pressure and which is why I try to create a good team environment. My aim is to create such an environment where they can get the best out of their ability,” Dravid said.

Rahul Dravid, India A, Under-19, Coach, Bat Thickness, Impact, Cricket, Team India, Mithali Raj, Jhulan Goswami, Women Cricket
In 2015, Dravid was first named as the coach of Under-19 side, before joining India A. Photo Credit: Getty Images.

After taking up the coaching role, Dravid has done various things for the betterment of Indian cricket. He has made sure that a player doesn’t get a chance to play more than one U-19 World Cup which makes as many as five junior level players ineligible to play the next World Cup. He felt that playing too much of junior level cricket might be very dangerous.

“When I took over the U-19 coach, one of the things I felt was that people stay on and play too much of U-19 cricket. Which I think is very dangerous, so we took a decision of not allowing anyone to play more than one World Cup. Which actually meant that five of the players of the last World Cup who were eligible for this year this World Cup in January are not playing. Guys like Washington Sundar, Zeeshan Ansari, Mahipal Lomror have all been picked in their respective Ranji Trophy teams. Even the state associations are looking ahead and not forcing them to keep playing in U-19. Their mindset and horizon are increasing. I think age group cricket has a purpose to solve but it is a limited purpose and from then on you have to play men’s cricket,” he said.

Rishabh Pant

Rishabh Pant has been the recent example of youngsters breaking into the national team. Until Dhoni is there, he won’t be able to seal a permanent spot, but rubbing shoulder with the likes of Kohli’s and Rahane’s are shrugging off in their game too.

Very recently Shreyas Iyer who has been a prolific-run scorer for Mumbai in the domestic circuit was called up for the T20I series against New Zealand.

“A lot of these young guys are being given opportunities. Their performances are being recognized by the selectors. We are having more A team matches to bridge that gap between domestic cricket and international cricket. Hence a lot of these youngsters are performing and doing well. We have already seen four of our boys from the team have got into the national side, which is a great thing. But sometimes it is hard to break into such a successful team (like the present Indian squad), and they need to wait for their opportunities,” he said.

Shreyas Iyer. Image Courtesy: BCCI
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