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'Won't talk about timeframe but Rahul Dravid taking over as full-time India head coach is likely to happen'
Former India batsman WV Raman said it is perhaps a matter of time before Rahul Dravid takes over as the full-time coach.
It was somewhere between the second and third week of May this year that reports of Rahul Dravid being the head coach of a young Indian side minus the top stars set to tour Sri Lanka started doing the rounds. The confirmation from the BCCI came around mid-June, about a month before the Sri Lanka series. The anticipatory hope-balloon was finally seeing daylight.
As a by-product, however, full-time head coach Ravi Shastri’s future was now being looked at through a prism of doubt. Not for any fault of Shastri’s. Under his tenure, an ICC trophy may have eluded India so far, but the Virat Kohli-led Indian side has reached stratospheric heights in all three formats. Then why this anticipation of Dravid taking over as regular head coach of India? Are his numbers as an India cricketer the main reason? They certainly are but they are not the only ones. The former India captain and the former all-rounder have always been locked in an unseen, unwilling coaching battle even without realising.
When Dravid agreed to coach the India A and U-19 sides back in June 2015, Shastri was not even confirmed as the senior Indian side’s head coach. In fact, the Dhoni-led Team India did not have a designated head coach after Duncan Fletcher had parted ways post India’s semifinal exit in the 2015 World Cup.
Reports even suggested that Dravid was the first choice of the BCCI advisory committee (now defunct) comprising Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly and VVS Laxman to replace Fletcher but ‘The Wall’ as Dravid was famously known as was reluctant because of the travel duties that the job would bring.
Till then, Shastri had had a couple of stints as a Technical Director with the Indian side. Things started moving rapidly in Indian cricket after former captain Anil Kumble was suddenly named full-time head coach of the side only to be replaced by Shastri after India’s loss to Pakistan in the Champions Trophy final in 2017.
All this while, Dravid had started to reform the junior cricket structure. India A and India U19 teams had begun to be the ultimate supply line for the senior side. His name again cropped up when Kumble quit. Ganguly had in fact announced that Dravid will be working as a batting consultant with the senior side along with newly-appointed head coach Shastri on selected tours.
That, however, never saw the light of day as BCCI regulations give full freedom to the head coach to select his own support staff. Shastri went ahead with Bharat Arun as bowling coach and Sanjay Bangar was retained as the batting consultant.
Dravid continued his work with the young sides. India even went on to lift the U19 World Cup in 2018 while Shastri did a fantastic job with two series wins in Australia under his belt.
It was only recently – with the Sri Lanka tour and BCCI’s decision to prepare two separate Indian teams to minimise travel - that the Dravid vs Shastri debate once again started gaining steam.
Former India batsman WV Raman said it is perhaps a matter of time before Dravid takes over as the full-time coach.
“I won’t want to talk about the time frame but that (Dravid taking over as full-time head coach) is likely to happen, maybe some time in future. I can’t be indulging in crystal ball glazing and say when it will happen but it will happen whenever Dravid is ready. In fact, there has been a lot of talk going around for the last four-five years. It’ll happen when he feels he’s ready to take the travel,” Raman, the former India women's head coach, told Hindustan Times in an exclusive chat.
Dravid will give assurance to the youngsters: Raman
Raman, who will be a part of the Tamil commentary team for the India-Sri Lanka series, said Dravid can work and mould the cricketers better if he gets a longer tenure rather than a month-long tour.
“He can make them aware of the talent they possess. And he can also help them utilise that talent towards achieving the optimum. He’s anyway worked with most of these youngsters for a period of three-four years. But if he’s there with them regularly for a period of say two years, it will be easier to make changes as both the players and he will stick together and chalk out a plan or a routine on how to go about things. So a lot depends on the tenure that a coach works with the players,” Raman added.
The former left-hander said the presence of Dravid in the dressing room will reassure the young cricketers whenever they go through a rough phase.
“The very presence of Rahul Dravid will give these cricketers reassurance because he’s a calm person by nature and he’s also one of those who believes that failures are part of a cricketer’s career. He can sit with them, make sure they don’t get dejected, which is very important because when a cricketer is doing well, the entire world will be behind him. It’s only when they are having a bad day that they need somebody to have a chat. Rahul Dravid is someone who is very good at it, he can pick the players up,” he added.
Dravid will start his journey as an India head coach on July 18 when India take on Sri Lanka in the first ODI at Colombo.
(Watch the 1st ODI on 18th July 2021 LIVE on SONY TEN 1 and SONY SIX in English from 3.00 pm IST )
