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Rahul Dravid opens a logical, conversational path; Team India will benefit in long-term

Rahul Dravid has opened rather unfamiliar route in India cricket, a space of candid conversations between players and team management. How will it work? Read here.

Rahul Dravid

Bengaluru, February 21: Around this time last year, the football fans were in shock after seeing the name of Sergio Ramos missing from Spain’s squad for the Euro 2020.

Everyone was hurt. Ramos was hurt. The Real Madrid super star penned an emotional note on his social media accounts on how painful it was not to represent his country.

That hurt is a common factor among sportspersons across the world, across the disciplines as the elite athletes always want to perform at the grandest stage. Some take it with poise but a few others will let go off the steam.

It is not entirely about the hunger for glory or race for endorsements but also because the professional athletes have a short lifespan at the top of his sport for a variety of reasons.

It’s not unusual for them to express that pain openly too like Ramos did. Cricket has its reflection of that hurt as India looked past four veteran stars — Ajinkya Rahane, Cheteshwar Pujara, Wriddhiman Saha and Ishant Sharma.

All of them have played stellar roles in India’s campaigns in their careers but did not find a place in the national squad for Test series against Sri Lanka.

Pujara and Rahane have turned up in the Ranji Trophy for the respective sides and impressed with good outings and Ishant has decided to rejoin the Delhi state side for the premier domestic tournament.

Saha, but, chose to vent his hurt through a media interaction and the subsequent events have created ripples in the sports fraternity.

Pujara, Rahane and Ishant have not spoken about their omission, yet. But they too will be hurting inside and it would be some stretch if imagination not to think so. But from a cricketing perspective, the decision taken by the team management is quite logical.

Saha is 37 and India is scheduled to play just three Tests this year until the T20 World Cup 2022 and it is understandable that the team wants to give more opportunities to Rishabh Pant, now the No 1 choice for wicketkeeper batsman, and KS Bharat, the reserve wicketkeeper batsman.

Pant’s wicketkeeping is still a work in progress but as a batsman he has scored hundreds in England, Australia and South Africa and also had guided a historic chase at Brisbane in January 2021.

Rahane and Ishant are 33 and Pujara is 34 and it is not clear at this moment what Dravid has conveyed to them but if we go by the words of Chetan Sharma then they have not been selected for the series against Sri Lanka and could be considered later.

It is very important for the selectors to take care of the cricketers when they are going through a rough phase. You can't just strike their name permanently.

"We have told them that we will not consider for these two Test matches. There is nothing wrong if we have told the four of them that we are not considering them for these two matches. We will consider them later,” Chetan Sharma had said while announcing the team.

So after all, it might not be a closed door case for the trio of Ishant, Rahane and Pujara. But even the fact that these senior cricketers have been put on notice is a sign of the road the team management will tread in the future.

Since January 2020, both Pujara and Rahane have played a total of 39 Tests and scored just 1 hundred between them and enjoyed the unstinted support of the captain, support staff etc during this period.

So, it is the right time to give them a break and give a run to the likes of Shreyas Iyer and Shubman Gill. Shreyas had made a hundred on Test debut while Gill’s Test journey needs a fillip to realise the early potential. This is the time, they need to be given a run in Test cricket than keep them waiting for long.

At times you need to take matters in your hand and make a headway rather than waiting for the natural end of it. Head coach Rahul Dravid is quite clear on this front.

“Easiest thing for me is to not have those conversations and not speak to players about it. That’s not what I am going to do.

“But at some stage, I hope they respect the fact that I was able to front up and have those conversations,” said Dravid in the virtual press conference at the end of the 3rd T20I against the West Indies at Kolkata.

Conversations, especially those candid ones, are not really familiar in Indian sporting arena when it comes to retirements and dropping a player from the team.

Rumours, sentiments and emotions have dominated that sphere in India but Dravid just might have engineered a different and a more logical path. Indian cricket will only get better for that.

Story first published: Monday, February 21, 2022, 13:33 [IST]
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