Sachin Tendulkar reflects on what Rahul Dravid brings to the table as Indian coach

While the main India team will be in England, preparing for the five-match Test series against the hosts, a team of white ball specialists will cross swords with Sri Lanka in three ODIs and as many T20Is in July. The team will be led by experienced opener Shikhar Dhawan while Bhuvneshwar Kumar will be his deputy. Youngsters like Prithvi Shaw, Ishan Kishan, Sanju Samson, Devdutt Padikkal, Ruturaj Gaikwad, Varun Chakravarthy and Chetan Sakariya will also get a chance to prove their mettle at the biggest stage. Notably, the Indian coach Ravi Shastri will be with the main team thus the BCCI has appointed Indian legend Dravid as India’s coach for the Sri Lanka tour. Rahul Dravid has been credited for preparing a strong bench strength for India during his stint with India A and Under-19 teams.

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Indian veteran Sachin Tendulkar reflected on what Rahul Dravid brings to the table as an Indian coach. Sachin said that Rahul has already worked with most of the players thus the youngsters will be very comfortable with him. Tendulkar further said that Rahul will create a healthy atmosphere in the dressing room.

“These players have spent enough time with Rahul, so they know him. A coach is someone who should keep a healthy atmosphere in the team and the dressing room, and Rahul will do that. At this level, unless there are weaknesses, you don’t need to coach the players. They all know how to hit a cover drive or bowl an outswinger. When somebody is struggling, that’s when someone of his experience will play a role. Otherwise, the team knows what they are supposed to do,” Tendulkar said in an interview with Times of India

The ODI series will get underway on July 13, with the remaining two matches to be played on 16 July and 18 July respectively. The T20Is will be played on July 21, 23 and 25. All matches are set to be played at the R Premadasa Stadium in Colombo.

Squad: Shikhar Dhawan (c), Prithvi Shaw, Devdutt Padikkal, Ruturaj Gaikwad, Suryakumar Yadav, Manish Pandey, Hardik Pandya, Nitish Rana, Ishan Kishan (wk), Sanju Samson (wk), Yuzvendra Chahal, Rahul Chahar, K Gowtham, Krunal Pandya, Kuldeep Yadav, Varun Chakravarthy, Bhuvneshwar Kumar (vc), Deepak Chahar, Navdeep Saini, Chetan Sakariya.