Rahul Dravid's first assignment as head coach of the Indian men's cricket team will be the three-match T20I series against New Zealand, which gets underway on Wednesday in Jaipur. Dravid, who was part of a joint press conference on Tuesday along with T20I captain Rohit Sharma, spoke on a range of topics including his vision for the team, workload management and the approach in the shortest format of the game. Dravid takes charge of the team from Ravi Shastri, who had a successful tenure as the team's head coach, but couldn't win any ICC trophy.
There are three ICC tournaments in Dravid's tenure, including a T20I and ODI World Cup respectively, along with the ICC World Test Championship.
Dravid enjoyed a great stint as a cricketer for India, going on to become one of the greatest batsmen that the country has produced. He captained India to landmark Test series wins in England and West Indies and is the fourth highest run-getter in the history of Test cricket with 13,288 runs in 164 matches. He also scored more than 10,000 runs in one-day internationals and was part of the Indian team that reached the final of the 2003 ICC World Cup.
Given Dravid's stature in the game, his past record as a player and experience in coaching the U-19 and India A sides, many greats of the game believe he will take Indian cricket to greater heights. One of them is former India captain and batting legend Sunil Gavaskar.
“When he used to play we used to think that till Rahul Dravid is at the crease, the Indian batting is safe and strong. This is the reason why I believe that the new responsibility of head coach that falls upon him, he will be able to handle it in a similar way,” Gavaskar said on the Star Sports show 'Follow The Blues'.
With several youngsters in the Indian squad for the T20I series, it will be interesting to see how Dravid manages to give opportunities and create the next superstars of Indian cricket.