Indian head coach Rahul Dravid has put his weight behind under-fire KL Rahul. Dravid said that Rahul has the team’s backing and he is confident he will do well in the upcoming matches of the T20I showpiece. Rahul hasn’t been able to perform at his best in the three matches of the ongoing T20 World Cup.
The Indian opener has looked tentative in his approach and has looked at sea against the new ball. Rahul was dismissed for only four runs in the big match against Pakistan. Subsequently, he was dismissed for only nine against the Netherlands and could just manage nine runs against South Africa.
Rahul hasn’t looked confident and he hasn’t been able to bring his best to the table for the national team.
Rahul Dravid said in the post-match press conference, “It was disappointing to lose at Parth, we had started the World Cup well. We are not bothered by KL’s track record at the moment. He was superb at the warm-up match against Australia and unfortunately, a lot of you weren’t present there. We have made it very clear to KL that he has our full support and we had a lot of clarity about the squad that we were planning to build. It is not at all a challenge for us to back players as we don’t focus on what is happening outside.”
On the other hand, Dinesh Karthik left the field against South Africa after facing lower back pain. Karthik hasn’t been able to deliver for the team in the two innings he has played in the World Cup. However, Dravid feels it is never easy to perform the finisher role as Karthik hardly gets many balls in the middle.
Dravid added, “We can’t field 15 players at the same time, right? we can only play 11 of them. It is not humanly possible to perform everyday, but that doesn’t mean that they are bad players. We are assessing Dinesh, he had attended the training session this morning. People in positions where DK is batting don’t get enough balls. We want to back such players.”
India could make a few changes to their playing XI for the match against Bangladesh and it would be interesting to note the players they will back.
India will take on Bangladesh on Wednesday at Adelaide Oval.
