The advent of Rahul Dravid at the helm of affairs in the Indian senior men’s cricket setup has ushered in a brand new era for Team India as one of the greatest ever players ‘the Wall’ to have played the gentlemen’s game takes the lead across all formats as head coach.
Dravid’s tenure has begun resoundingly with an emphatic 3-0 T20I series win against New Zealand in a bilateral series. The T20I series triumph was followed by a closely-fought draw in the first Test that went down to the very last ball in Kanpur against the Blackcaps. The hosts led by stand-in skipper Ajinkya Rahane, seemed like they were cruising to a dramatic win at Kanpur as they were in a very strong position to close the game, before the Kiwi tailenders and bad light factored in to deny them a win, the full points for the World Test Championship (WTC) cycle as well as a 1-0 series lead.
Despite a few roadblocks showing up in the form of individual players’ form among other hiccups, Dravid-coached India overall ticked most of the boxes on a track that was not a rank turner. Dravid chose to give the groundsmen at the Green Park stadium Rs 35,000 personally for preparing a good track that had something for everyone. It was a track that was essentially not a rank-turning dusty wicket and produced a competitive contest that lasted all 5 days and ended in a nailbiter of an end towards the end finishing in a thrilling draw.
However, former Indian cricketer-turned-commentator Saba Karim recently spoke about the challenges that lie ahead for Dravid being the India Head coach, especially heading into what are very busy times. He said on Times of India’s sports podcast — Sportscast:
“There’s a huge challenge ahead for Rahul Dravid as a Head coach. He has to look after the Test team, he has to prepare for the T20 World Cup coming up in Australia next year, then you have the One Day World Cup coming up in 2023. For all these three formats to have that kind of communication with the players and the selectors, to pick the right kind of resources, to give them enough time to prepare – it’s not going to be easy. But I think the kind of maturity and the kind of experience that Rahul Dravid has over the past several years, I am sure he will be able to deliver,” Karim said.
“I actually visualize Rahul Dravid in a larger role. Not now, maybe two years down the line. I look at him as becoming the Director of Cricket Operations in India and under him all the verticals of Indian cricket should fall – Team India, Women’s Team India, U-19 India, India A – that’s the image I have of Rahul Dravid in my mind and I feel that will be great for BCCI. That’s the kind of role I would like Rahul Dravid to have and I hope the BCCI can think along those lines also,” Karim further added.
According to Karim, Dravid’s personal experience of having played the game at the highest level and being one of the legends of the sport is in itself a move that calms nerves and helps team members focus more.
The Wall’s overall reputation of being a good guy who puts Indian cricket ahead of anything else, stellar coaching credentials at the junior India levels, and an overall sense of calm that Dravid brings to the table is immense.
From whatever we have seen so far in the very short time that he has been head coach, it’s quite clear that he is drawing up a blueprint for the future of Indian cricket, across all three formats.
