Muristek
Cape Town, January 24
After India got whitewashed 3-0 by South Africa in the ODI series, head coach Rahul Dravid admitted the team didn't have the right balance due to the unavailability of all-rounders Hardik Pandya and Ravindra Jadeja. Dravid also said India should have chased down South Africa's two 280-plus totals in the first and third ODIs.
"I think if you are a little bit honest, some of the guys who help us balance the squad out and give us those all-round options at Nos. 6, 7 and 8 are probably not here and available for selection," Dravid said, in an obvious reference to Pandya and Jadeja, who are dealing with injuries.
"Hopefully, when they come back, it will give us lot more depth, it allows us then to probably play in a slightly different style," Dravid said.
However, he did say the team should have chased down totals of 296 in the first match and 287 in the third.
"We certainly could do better with batting in middle overs," Dravid said. "But having said that, even South Africa who batted first on two occasions scored 290 as well and if I think back and look at the 30th over in both those games, we should have chased them down."
KL did a decent job
Dravid's assessment of KL Rahul's captaincy was pretty generous as he pointed out that Rahul is at the start of his role as captain.
"I thought he did a good job. Not easy to be on wrong side of the result. He is just starting out as captain," Dravid said. "And he will learn and a large part of captaincy is execution of skills by your players and quality of side you have got. We were a little bit short on the ODI side of things and I thought he did a very decent job, someone who is growing and will constantly be improving and get better as a captain."
Security and performance
Dravid does not believe in taking names but when he spoke about demanding performances after an extended run given to middle-order batters, it can be safely assumed he was referring to Shreyas Iyer and Rishabh Pant.
"We certainly want to give them that consistency and we want to give them that security," he said. "And once you give them that consistency and security, you also got to demand performances, really big performances and that is an expectation you have when you play at this level, when you play for your country, you have to put in big performances and that's a requirement. But idea is to give as much stability as you can." — Agencies,