India wicketkeeper batter Dinesh Karthik has hailed Rahul Dravid’s role as India’s head coach as he believes that Indian players are in a very safe space right now under his watchful eyes.
Notable that Team India hasn’t had a great time of late as they lost both Test and ODI series against South Africa. The selectors made quite a few changes for the series against West Indies as regular white-ball captain Rohit Sharma will also make a comeback in the series. He missed the entire South Africa tour due to a hamstring injury.
The first ODI between India and West Indies on February 6 will be a historic match as India is all set to become the first-ever team to play 1000 ODIs. So far in 999 ODI matches, India won 518 of them and lost 431. The next in the list is Australia with 958 ODIs.
Speaking about the occasion, Karthik said he is privileged to be part of the journey. Karthik represented India in 94 ODIs.
“To be the first team to play 1000 ODIs is a phenomenal achievement, it is hard to put it into perspective considering India has been playing for a long time now. But to play 1000 ODIs is no joke. I am so proud to be part of that journey, I have enjoyed playing the ODI format. We have been good at it. We have been a strong force over a period of few decades,” Dinesh Karthik said.
“We do have a lot of matches but players are given ample opportunity to rest, Rahul Dravid is the kind of person who will encourage players to speak how they are feeling mentally and physically. He will accommodate players’ wishes in terms of giving rest so I think India is in a very safe space right now,” he added.
Reacting to Kohli’s resignation from Test captaincy, Dinesh Karthik said that it would be unfair to comment on reasons why he took the decision but he reminded Dhoni’s statement in which the legendary captain said that the split captaincy doesn’t work in India.
“I remember MS Dhoni saying very clearly that India as a cricketing nation is very hard to have split captaincy. It is unfair for me to answer this question because only Virat knows why he took that decision to step down as captain, and I am sure he has a good reason behind it,” he stated.
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