'Ishan Kishan and Shreyas Iyer not dropped due to disciplinary issues': Rahul Dravid rejects media reports

Team India head coach Rahul Dravid has clarified that there have been no disciplinary issues regarding the non-selection of Shreyas Iyer and Ishan Kishan for the T20I series against Afghanistan. Both Iyer and Kishan were absent from India’s squad to face Afghanistan in a three-match T20I series, their last before the T20 World Cup in June. There were reports that suggested the duo’s absence was due to disciplinary issues, but Dravid has confirmed otherwise. Speaking to reporters in the pre-match press conference in Mohali on Wednesday, Dravid said that Kishan had requested for a break and that the team management had agreed to it. “No absolutely not (disciplinary issue). Ishan Kishan was not available for selection. Ishan requested for a break, which we agreed in South Africa. We supported it. He has not yet made himself available. I don’t think he has made himself available as yet. When he is available, he will play domestic cricket and make himself available for selection,” said Dravid. As for Shreyas, Dravid said that the 29-year-old missed out due to intense competition for slots. Shreyas was also not part of the three T20Is India played against South Africa in December.

🗣️ 🗣️ It will be a good challenge against the Afghanistan spinners and we are looking forward to it#TeamIndia Head Coach Rahul Dravid ahead of the #INDvAFG T20I series starting tomorrow @IDFCFIRSTBank pic.twitter.com/Tr6P7zOMSL

— BCCI (@BCCI) January 10, 2024

“Certainly, in Shreyas Iyer’s case, there is absolutely no disciplinary reason for his non-inclusion. It’s just that he missed out. There were a lot of batters in the team. Shreyas missed out, he didn’t play the T20Is in South Africa, if you noticed. They are a lot of batters and it’s not easy to fit everyone. So, absolutely, there is no disciplinary reasons at all. At least I didn’t discuss such things with the selectors,” added the 50-year-old. Jaiswal to open with Rohit In what would be a left-right opening combination, Dravid has confirmed that Yashasvi Jaiswal would open with skipper Rohit Sharma. This could mean that Shubman Gill will have to sit out. “As of now, we will be certainly opening with Rohit and Jaiswal. But when you have a squad, you have to have that flexibility to do whatever is required if that is in the best interest of the team and gives us the best chance to succeed. “So nothing is closed. But certainly, we’re really happy with what Jaiswal has done as an opener for us, and he gives us a left-right combination as well at the top,” added Dravid. Since making his T20I debut against West Indies in August last year, Jaiswal has gone onto play a total of 15 T20Is, scoring 430 runs, including a century and three fifties. Dravid, meanwhile, went onto say that it was impossible for all players to be playing all the time. Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma returned to India’s T20I squad against Afghanistan, with Rohit to lead. However, on Wednesday evening, Dravid confirmed that Kohli would miss the first T20I due to personal reasons. “There’s been quite a few ICC events over the last two, three years, and a lot of them back to back. “So there’s not been a lot of time in between these ICC events. At various stages, in the last couple of years that I’ve been here, we’ve had to prioritise certain formats, certain tournaments, simply because just the amount of cricket that is being played, and just managing the players, it’s impossible for all the players to be playing all the time,” Dravid continued. “So we’ve always had to to prioritise what is important, especially for the guys who are playing all the three formats. Even in this series, people such as [Jasprit] Bumrah, [Ravindra] Jadeja and [Mohammed] Siraj have missed out because keeping in mind the five Test matches that we have against England. So you’re always playing that juggling act a little bit over the last two years,” the former captain further stated. Dravid went onto say that due to the lack of T20Is ahead of the T20 World Cup, players’ performance in the IPL could be taken into perspective while selecting the squad. “Obviously, for the large part of the last year, and after the last T20 World Cup, we had prioritised the one-day World Cup. There has not been a lot of games after the one-day World Cup for us in terms of the T20 format,” said Dravid. “So this T20 World Cup is slightly different from that perspective, in the sense that there’s not been a lot of time to prepare for it. So we have to rely obviously on the cricket that we have. And also a little bit on the IPL. But the boys will play T20 cricket. So they’ll be playing here, they’ll play the IPL. We might not get many opportunities to play together, so we’ll just have to work around that. Dravid urged his players to adapt and remain flexible.  “You just have to adapt and be flexible. We had a really good preparation leading into the one-day World Cup; even before the last T20 World Cup, I thought we had a lot of games together as a group. This time, we probably won’t have that and it is a question of adapting and going with it,” added the former Karnataka batter.