India's head coach, Rahul Dravid, has finally commented on the strategic decision to give a breather to captain Rohit Sharma and the iconic batsman, Virat Kohli, for the first two ODIs in the three-match series versus Australia. Notably, key players like Rohit, Kohli, Hardik Pandya, and Kuldeep Yadav are set to return for the culminating match of the series.
"With people like Virat and Rohit specifically, from our perspective, it's really important that we get them to that first game of the World Cup, physically and mentally in the space that they want to be in. At this level, with the amount of cricket that they've played, they know how they need to prepare themselves. A lot of these decisions are made in discussion in them - all our players, not only the two of them. But certainly, the senior and the more experienced guys kind of have their routines and know what they need to do to get into that first game just in the right frame of mind," Dravid told reporters in the pre-series press conference.
This presents a golden opportunity for players like Suryakumar Yadav and Shreyas Iyer to amass runs and bolster their confidence. Especially since Shreyas had to bow out from most of the Asia Cup 2023 due to back issues, and Surya has been under scrutiny for his less-than-stellar ODI track record. On being questioned about Surya's position concerning the ICC's World Cup squad amendment deadline, Dravid came to his defense, offering his support to the 33-year-old batsman.
"We discuss with them on how best they'd like to prepare in the lead-up to big events like the World Cup. And we came up with mutual decisions on deciding that these two games were good for them to take off, just to refresh mentally more than anything else. And then come back in Rajkot and then it's going to be a tough couple of months ahead for us," he added.
India squad for the first two ODIs: KL Rahul (captain), Ravindra Jadeja (vice-captain), Ruturaj Gaikwad, Shubman Gill, Shreyas Iyer, Suryakumar Yadav, Tilak Varma, Ishan Kishan (wicketkeeper), Shardul Thakur, Washington Sundar, R Ashwin, Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Shami, Mohammed Siraj, Prasidh Krishna.
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