Rahul Dravid could coach Indian team during planned tour of Sri Lanka – Reports

Rahul Dravid could coach Indian team during planned tour of Sri Lanka – Reports

Rahul Dravid

The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has planned a tour of Sri Lanka in the month of July consisting of three ODIs and three T20Is. It is noteworthy that at the same time, the Indian Test team will be occupied with their commitments in England. Although they won’t be playing matches at the same time, they will be gearing up for the five-match Test series against England following the final of the World Test Championship (WTC).

India are thus likely to send a second string side to the tour of Sri Lanka, consisting of players who are exclusively part of their white ball squads as well as youngsters who haven’t represented India yet. The team is likely to be led by either Shikhar Dhawan or Shreyas Iyer and the likes of Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Hardik Pandya and Prithvi Shaw who were unlucky to miss out on the Test squad could feature here.

Rahul Dravid and NCA coaches could be called up

Rahul Dravid
Rahul Dravid

According to reports from Cricbuzz, former Indian captain Rahul Dravid and his staff of coaches at the National Cricket Academy (NCA) could be asked to coach the team in Sri Lanka. A BCCI official reportedly told that the possibility of the same was ‘very much there’.

It is noteworthy that the concept of having teams play two different series at the same time with two different squads is not new. Even very recently, Australia had planned the same with a T20 series against New Zealand and Tests against South Africa. Assistant coach Andrew McDonald was to accompany the T20 team and head coach Justin Langer for the Tests. However, the latter series was canceled.

As far as India are concerned, this is the second time such an instance is taking place. The first was way back in 1998 when they had fielded two different teams for the Commonwealth Games in Kuala Lampur and the Sahara Cup in Canada which were taking place at the same time.

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