Rahul Dravid: “We can always be hopeful, till Jasprit’s injuries are totally confirmed.”
Despite the team’s injury problems, the head coach is not panicking and believes in the abilities of the players on the roster.
Dravid stated that India would play at four different locations during the Super 12 stage of the competition, and that they are well prepared for this because to the versatility in their lineup.
Dravid stated that they had not been able to deploy the same lineup in the previous series due to a variety of factors. When questioned if the continual reshuffling of the starting eleven may cause players to lose confidence in their position in the lineup, the Indian head coach stated that communication within the squad is strong and that playing the same XI over and again is a bit unrealistic.
“I haven’t gone deeply into the medical reports,” Dravid told reporters. “I rely on the experts to tell me what it is. They ruled him out for this series, and he’s being assessed. We’ll know in due course what happens in the future. Obviously, till he’s completely ruled out, till I get official confirmation that he’s ruled out, we’ll always be hopeful, right? We’ll always hope for the best, for us as a team, and also for Jasprit as an individual. We will always hope for the best.”
“As of now, officially he has been ruled out of this T20 series against South Africa, these two games. He has gone to the NCA, and we are waiting for the official confirmation on the next steps. We will see what happens over the next few days, and once we get some official confirmation, we’ll be able to share that,” he added.
“I think we’ve been very clear about the kind of skills that we want in the 15. I think for me that is really important, the kind of squad that we picked for the World Cup – barring injury, what were the kind of skills that we were looking for, different kind of bowlers, certain batting skills – so all of those things, without going into too much detail, we’ve always been very clear about it, and I think to a large extent we’ve managed to get everything,” Dravid stated.
“I think that’s really important in a tournament like the World Cup where you play in five different venues, or four different venues in our case in the league stage, and then hopefully onwards, and you play against five different teams, so you really need to have that little bit of versatility and flexibility in your squad that allows you to change up things if you need to against a particular opposition. I think we’ve been very clear with that – yes, I mean obviously, over the last few series, we probably haven’t been able to play that squad due to a variety of reasons, and that can happen, but I think that most of the guys in the 15 now have had a pretty decent amount of cricket, at least in the last six months here,” he concluded.
