Subhayan Chakraborty in Dharamsala
Rahul Dravid, India’s coach, spoke to the media on the eve of the game against New Zealand in Dharamsala. India have started the tournament with four straight wins, including marquee match-ups against Australia and Pakistan. But New Zealand have often been a bogey team at ICC events, and India will have to make do without the injured Hardik Pandya. Dravid spoke about that, the spinners’ star turns, pitches being rated average and much else.
On Pandya missing the game
He is an important player for us and an important all-rounder. He helps us balance our squad out really well. But he is going to be missing this game, so we will have to work around that and see what is the best combination. I mean, in the end, we’ve got to work with the 14 that we’ve got. You do expect these kind of things to happen, that’s why you have got a squad. We will have to see what works best for these conditions and this wicket. But yeah, probably we might not have the kind of balance that we used in the first four games.
On how opposing teams have handled India’s spinnersI wouldn’t really want to focus much on the opposition players. I’d really like to compliment the role of our spinners. I think they have done a fantastic job. I think the way the three of them bowled in the first game, and then obviously we played with Kuldeep and Jadeja in the next three games… they’ve been able to bring us back into games, control games, take wickets, bring the run rate down. It’s down to their skill and their ability.
They’re obviously different kinds of left-arm bowlers, so that gives us variation, gives us different angles that they bowl at. Big credit to them and also the bowling coaches working with them to really ensure that they’ve been bowling well. I thought Rohit’s done a great job of handling them and working out the right ends. Some really good field placings as well.
On pitches being rated as average
I will respectfully disagree with the average rating given for those two wickets. I think they were good wickets. Maybe I will answer this in English because I might get myself into trouble by saying something.
If you only want to see 350 games and rate only those wickets as good, then I disagree with that. I think you have to see different skills on display as well. If only those are good wickets, then why are the bowlers here? Why have spinners at all, for that matter?
See the quality of watching Jadeja bowl or a Santner bowl or a Zampa bowl, or watching Kane Williamson rotate the strike through the middle. Virat Kohli and KL Rahul, the way they batted against Australia. Those are skills as well. Those also need to come out and be shown and be displayed.
On how KL Rahul has done as wicketkeeper-batter
It’s certainly not easy, and I think he is doing a fantastic job of it. I thought Rahul’s really kept superbly in this tournament and then batted really well whenever he’s got the opportunity to do so, especially in the first game. But yeah, I think it is challenging, because he’s not someone who keeps regularly at all. But he’s probably kept a little bit more than I did. As a youngster, he kept probably up to his under-19 days, and he’s kept in a few T20 games as well for Karnataka. He was also out with injury for four or five months. When we first decided that he would keep and we wanted to have that kind of option, we thought we would build him up to this tournament by giving him game time and building him up. But unfortunately, due to his injury, he actually couldn’t keep for a while.
On whether Shardul Thakur can step up in Pandya’s absence
Shardul’s role was to be the bowling all-rounder for us. In the games that he played, we saw him as someone who certainly has a happy knack of taking wickets, as we have seen, and then bowling those middle overs being like a fourth seeming option on certain wickets.
He hasn’t had a chance to really bat a lot over the last bit. But he’s been working very hard in the nets with his batting. We’ve seen that he has the ability to hit some big shots. Obviously, with Hardik not being there and Hardik being one of those four seamers, we’ll just have to see what combination we go with. We certainly can go with three fast bowlers or the three spinners. With that kind of combination, we still could play him and play Ash, and move Jadeja up.
I wouldn’t want to give too much away. We are pretty clear on what our playing 11 is tomorrow. But I wouldn’t want to be giving too much away. I think there are different combinations we could come up with. Obviously the three seamers, having someone like Shami sitting out there and bringing him in this game is a great option. In some cases, there is Ashwin who has obviously been sitting out, who has great quality as well. So, there are two or three combinations we could use till Hardik gets back.