India vs Australia: 'These decisions are made in discussions with...,' Rahul Dravid on resting Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma

The upcoming ODI series between India and Australia will be the final bilateral commitment for both teams before the World Cup gets underway in India on 5 October. Both teams are looking to finalise their plans for the World Cup. However, the Indian selectors, headed by Ajit Agarkar, decided to rest seniors in the side, including Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma, for the first two ODIs against Australia. IND vs AUS 1st ODI: Cummins set to return, Starc and Maxwell to miss out The duo, along with Hardik Pandya and Kuldeep Yadav, will return for the third ODI, and while there have been a few fans on social media who have criticised the move to rest senior players, head coach Rahul Dravid clarified on the issue. Dravid said that most of these decisions were made in consideration with the players themselves. “I think with people like Virat and Rohit specifically, from our perspective, it is really important that we get them to that first game of the World Cup in the space (physically and mentally) they want to be in. You know at this level, the amount of cricket they play, they know how they need to prepare themselves,” Dravid said at the pre-match press conference In Mohali. “And a lot of these decisions are made in discussions with them. In an effort to try and get all our players, obviously not the two of them, certainly the senior and the more experienced guys kind of have their routines and know what they need to do to get into that first game just in the right frame of mind,” added Dravid.

🗣️🗣️ 'We want to play good cricket in the series.'

Hear what #TeamIndia Head Coach Rahul Dravid had to say ahead of the #INDvAUS ODI series opener 🏟️ pic.twitter.com/6oJtl02x0C

— BCCI (@BCCI) September 21, 2023

Dravid said the decision to rest Kohli and Rohit was mutual, following discussions with the duo. “So a lot of these decisions are taken in discussions with them. We discuss with them, how best they would like to prepare in the lead-up to the World Cup. So yeah, based on those discussions, we came up with mutual decisions on deciding that probably these two games were good games for them to take off just to refresh mentally more than anything else. Then come back to Rajkot. And then it’s gonna be a tough couple of months ahead for us,” added the 50-year-old. KL Rahul will be leading the Men in Blue in Rohit’s absence. Tilak Varma and Ruturaj Gaikwad have been included in the squad, while Ravichandran Ashwin and Washington Sundar return to the setup. ‘It could be because of one rule change’: Dravid Dravid also spoke on the lack of part-time bowlers, explaining that it’s because the fielders inside the ring have increased to five from previously four. This rule came into effect in 2015, when it was announced that teams could only have four fielders outside the ring. “I think it could be because of the rule change. Suddenly you have gone from four fielders inside the ring to five fielders inside the ring. I think that has drastically changed the ability of part-time bowler to be able to bowl in the middle phase,” said Dravid. Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly and Yuvraj all used to bowl part time, while Suresh Raina and Virender Sehwag also bowled under Dhoni’s leadership. “If you remember and mention all these names (Sachin, Sourav, Sehwag, Yuvraj, Raina) bowling in this phase, a lot of these guys started when there used to be only four fielders in the ring. “In that kind of situation (five fielders outside the ring), you could lose a lot of part-time bowlers and not only us, but a lot of teams also did that. If you will notice, the number of part-time bowlers have gone down in other teams as well. “It’s not only the Indian team,” he added. “Partly, it is because of two new balls, you have got five fielders in the ring in the middle overs. It’s not that they are not bowling in the nets, lot of bowlers do try, they bowl in the nets. “But if you don’t get opportunities to bowl in the middle then it became very difficult to develop your skill,” the coach said. He also attributed to the defensive mindsets of captains and coaches, who don’t want to punt on a part-timer. “And more and more captains and coaches are wary of the rules and so they will always look to play a genuine bowler in the mix because of the two new balls and five fielders in the ring.” So what could be the solution? It is about finding more all-rounders and that has been the current team management’s endeavour. “Also try to find genuine all-rounders in the team and the goal is really to try and find sort of genuine all-rounders. This is something we are working on. “It’s not that we don’t work on that, we constantly work on it and we are constantly working on some of our bowlers to bat well as well. Certainly (whenever rules changed), lot of part-time bowlers have been reduced.” With PTI inputs