India Virat Kohli and KL Rahul (captain) celebrate after taking a wicket during an IND vs SA match
Highlight
- India lost the ODI series against South Africa 3-0.
- KL Rahul was the stand-in captain during the ODI series in Rohit Sharma’s absence.
Team India’s head coach Rahul Dravid commented on Sunday KL Rahuland said that the latter did a good job. The coach highlighted that KL’s captaincy would improve with time.
Despite a fine start in the opening Test at Centurion, India lost both the Test and ODI series in a disastrous tour of South Africa, which the team won comprehensively.
“He did a good job. It’s not easy to end up on the wrong side of the result,” Dravid said.
“He is just starting out and I think he did a great job. He will continue to get better as captain,” the head coach said, batting for the young captain.
Dravid felt there was a lack of “execution of skill” in all three ODIs that India lost.
According to Dravid, the series is a “good eye-opener”, but there is still a lot of time before the 2023 ODI World Cup, and India should look better in the near future.
“It’s a good eye-opener, but we haven’t played a lot of ODI cricket. We last played against England in March (after that was played against Lanka under Dravid’s coaching). We first played a lot of whites. Will play ball cricket. World Cup next year.”
Dravid admitted that the Indian ODI team did not have the kind of balance needed for the series, although he agreed that one can try and start looking at the blueprint.
“The players who play on 6, 7, and 8 were not available for selection and when they come back, the team’s look will be a little different,” he added.
He admitted that he was in play in both chases until the 30th over, before some of the batsmen played poor shots.
“We didn’t play smart cricket at crucial times,” he said.
– PTI. with inputs from
,