India’s head coach Rahul Dravid has remained tight-lipped on India’s opening combination for the ongoing T20 World Cup. Dravid said they are going to keep their cards close to their chest ahead of the opener against Ireland on Wednesday.
Yashasvi Jaiswal didn’t play in the warm-up match against Bangladesh and thus a lot of cricket experts reckon that Virat Kohli might open the innings with skipper Rohit Sharma. Virat Kohli was once again at his absolute best for RCB, scoring 741 runs in 15 innings at an average of 61.75 and a strike rate of 154.69 in IPL 2024 while opening the innings.
On the other hand, Rohit Sharma was Mumbai Indians’ top-scorer with 417 runs in 14 matches of IPL 2024 as he scored his runs at an average of 32.08 and a strike rate of 150.
Rahul Dravid said in the pre-match press conference, “We have got options. We are obviously not going to reveal our cards just yet. We have got Rohit and Jaiswal and Virat’s opening in the IPL as well. We’ve picked the team keeping in mind that we did have three options and we could pick and choose what we wanted depending on the conditions, depending on the kind of combination we go into these games with.
“We’ll see what it’s like, but it’s nice to have some real quality options at the top of the order,” Dravid added.
On the other hand, India hasn’t been able to break their major ICC title hoodoo in the last decade. However, Dravid said they have played some good cricket in the big events but haven’t been able to cross the last hurdle.
“We’ve played really well in these World Cups in terms of our consistency – making the semifinals in the T20 World Cup in Australia, playing extremely well in the World Test Championship cycle to get to the final there again and then the 50-over World Cup, where we had a great run and went into the final,” he said.
Dravid admitted that they haven’t been able to bring their best in the big moments of the big matches, which has led to their downfall.
“You can’t say that we have not played good cricket in these tournaments. Yes, we haven’t been able to get across the line in the knockout game.
“We haven’t been able to execute in that last phase. So hopefully we play good cricket to get ourselves into those positions again and then, maybe play good cricket on the day to cross the line,” Dravid concluded.
India will begin their T20 World Cup campaign against Ireland on June 5th.
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