Rahul Dravid has never believed in “rocking the boat” and certainly won’t change his template to give Cheteshwar Pujara and Ajinkya Rahane the longest rope possible, even if Hanuma Vihari’s wait for regular opportunities gets a little longer. Vihari, the Indian cricketer’s ‘Tough Runs Man’ has never had it easy in terms of odds as he has only played one of his 13 tests at home and it was skipper Virat Kohli’s back cramps and Shreyas Iyer’s stomach flu that caused the door opened for another chance.
The Hyderabad-man did his part in the second innings with an unbeaten 40 in India’s goal of 240 for the Proteas.
“First off I have to say Vihari played really well in both innings. In the first innings he got a nasty one and unfortunately for him it popped up and fielder just got his finger tips on it and got a really good catch, he hit the ball beautifully second innings and that gives us confidence, you know,” Dravid was effusive in his praise of Vihari.
He also took the opportunity to praise Shreyas Iyer, another strong middle-class candidate.
“Shreyas (Iyer) clearly did that two or three friendlies ago and he clearly did that and they just need to take heart from the fact that when they get opportunities they do it well and hopefully their time will come.” But that doesn’t mean he will be preferable to a Rahane or a Pujara in this lineup with Kohli coming back in the next game, Dravid made it pretty clear.
In fact, without citing, he cited examples during his playing days when the middle class was overcrowded and guys like Kohli, Pujara and Rahane had to wait a year or two before becoming regulars on the test team.
“If you look at some of our guys who are now senior players and are considered senior players, they’ve also had to wait their time and score a lot of runs at the start of their careers as well.” Dravid does have a transition and phase-out plan but as everything has its own opportune time, this too will have to wait.
“So it happens (wait) as the nature of the sport,” he said, adding: “We can take a lot of courage from the way Vihari hit in this match and that should give him a lot of confidence and that should give us a a lot of confidence.”
Siraj doubtful for Cape Town test
Dravid confirmed that fast bowler Mohammed Siraj has not recovered from the hamstring injury he sustained in the second Test and it cannot be said for sure that he will be available for the final match starting January 11 in Cape Town.
“Siraj is not completely fit and we have to see what his condition is in the future. In the next four days he will get fit and will do physio scans.” “As for Hanuma Vihari’s hit on the field, I cannot say the extent of the injury, as I have not had an extensive conversation with the physio.” Siraj’s injury did pose a problem defending a neither here nor there sort of goal which was 240.
“Losing Siraj (was a factor) because he wasn’t 100 percent in the first innings,” said Dravid, praising the fast bowler’s heart for bowling even when he was injured.
“We had the fifth bowler and we couldn’t use him as much as we would have liked in those first innings and it did affect our strategy.”
The start of the fourth afternoon with Ravichandran Ashwin received a lot of flak, but the head coach defended the decision.
“I think we saw the ball spin for Ashwin on the third day and we wanted to get him into action until the ball was dry and see if he got some spin in the first few overs.
“Because the ball got wet (because of the wet outfield), it was difficult for a spinner to get into the game. He (Ashwin) threw a really good period on the third day. The gamble was to try and get him the dry ball to give,” explains the coach.
promoted
Dravid, who had already talked about how batters should capitalize on key moments, disagreed that not having an exhibition game could be an excuse.
“We prepared ourselves as best we could in these Covid situations and the fact that we didn’t have a three day game … really have no excuses other than that we played well in the first test and SA beat us in this game.”
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