Dravid: Not all wickets are going to be flat

Sri Lanka tour India coach says T20I series loss gives players an opportunity to reflect on their performance and work towards getting better on all surfaces

Rahul Dravid believes that the new crop of Indian batsmen will learn with experience that “not all wickets will be flat” and they need to develop the art of scrapping it out on low-scoring tracks like the ones on offer during the last two T20 Internationals against Sri Lanka.

India lost the three-match T20 International series against Sri Lanka 1-2 on Thursday, playing without nine of their first team players due to COVID-19 related isolation.

Rookies struggle

Rookies Devdutt Padikkal, Ruturaj Gaikwad, Nitish Rana along with Sanju Samson literally struggled against a quality spin bowling attack led by leg-spinner Wanindu Hasaranga. Asked if he was disappointed in the manner the younger players were found wanting against Hasaranga and company, Dravid replied in the negative. “I am not disappointed as they are young. They are going to learn and get better only when they are exposed to these kind of conditions and quality of bowling. Sri Lankan team’s bowling attack is an international bowling attack,” Dravid said while assessing the overall performance in the series.

Rahul Dravid

But the former India captain and an all-time great did admit that there is lot to learn on how to play on challenging tracks, saying pitches in domestic cricket have become easier to bat as compared to his times.

“They would have liked to score a few more runs. They now have an opportunity to reflect that not all wickets are going to be flat. We need to find ways to scrap and score 130, 140 on these wickets,” Dravid observed after seeing the Ranas and the Padikkals struggle on a Premadasa track where ball wasn’t coming on to the bat.

‘A good learning’

“It’s really a good learning as they are all young players. This is a great opportunity to reflect on these performances and may be come up with some slightly better strategies. Let me be fair, we don’t get these kind of conditions very often in T20 cricket but when you do, I think, you have responsibility to play slightly better,” the head of National Cricket Academy said.

Dravid said even his generation had their share of struggles but he feels during their times, they did play on tracks that offered turn and some were “under-prepared.”

Also Read: Yuzvendra Chahal, Krishnappa Gowtham test positive; to stay back in Sri Lanka

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