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And though India head coach Rahul Dravid was pleased with the series result, he was primarily concerned about his team’s lack of practice time before the marquee tournament in the USA and the West Indies.
“Unfortunately, we really won’t have much cricket as a team anymore. We will obviously have the IPL, and you know, everyone will be watching closely to see how some of those guys play and what are the slots we need to fill in the team,” Dravid said in his post-match press conference.
After the 3-0 series victory against Afghanistan, Dravid was happy because a few bench players showed well, providing the team additional alternatives ahead of the T20 World Cup in June.
After the ODI World Cup, India played 11 Twenty20 matches, and with frontline players rested, the think tank was able to examine some of the candidates more closely, including Jitesh Sharma and Shivam Dube.
Dravid was quite chuffed at their efforts.
“We’ve had different people play after the last ODI World Cup for a variety of reasons. But I think it’s just nice to see that there are some options (ahead of World Cup) who have put their hand up, and certainly shown that they’ve got skills to address.
“Some areas we might need some addressing in, and we were thinking about it,” Dravid said.
With 124 runs and two wickets in the series against Afghanistan, Dube won player of the series, and Dravid was happy to have an all-rounder option to choose from.
“He’s come back after a long time. He’s certainly very much an improved player after coming back. There’s no doubt that he always had the talent, but just really happy to see the way he performed in the series.
“I’m sure it will give him a lot of confidence as well, you come back in and play a series and you become the man of the series. It’s great and has certainly put his hand up. He’s going to have that opportunity to show it in the IPL again, like he did last year,” said Dravid.
The position of the wicketkeeper will also be scrutinized because India now has several options in Jitesh, Sanju Samson, Ishan Kishan, KL Rahul, and Rishabh Pant, who is still recovering from an injury.
The former Indian captain did not rule out anyone from contention.
“We’ve got quite a few keeping options out there. We saw a couple of guys in this game. There’s Sanju, Kishan and Rishabh, I mean, we have all these guys. “We’ll just have to see how things pan out over the course of the next few months and make a decision on what we think is the best way to go.”
In the second Super Over against Afghanistan on Wednesday night, captain Rohit Sharma‘s choice to send the ball to leg-spinner Ravi Bishnoi impressed Dravid as well.
Bishnoi defended 11 runs well, bowling out Rahmanullah Gurbaz and Mohammed Nabi on consecutive balls.
“Rohit went with Bishnoi and it was his gut call. I think he felt that a spinner had a better chance to take two wickets. If they batted six balls, with the power that they had, they probably would have got 12 runs.
“But I thought Bishnoi was brilliant because he bowled two super balls. He pulled the length back. If the length had gone slightly fuller, you know, it would have gone for six. It was a really good gut call from Rohit to go for the wickets and be more aggressive rather than looking for a safer option,” Dravid added.
(With PTI inputs)
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