Rahul Dravid talks about the significance of player rotation in India 'A' team
The Director of Cricket Operations at the National Cricket Academy, Rahul Dravid, recently appeared on WV Raman's Inside Out podcast, where he discussed the significance of rotating players in the India 'A' team.
While Rahul Dravid is the NCA Head now, he has served as the coach of the India U-19 and India 'A' cricket teams from 2016 to 2019. Under his guidance, Prithvi Shaw and co. lifted the ICC U-19 World Cup in 2018. Dravid highlighted the importance of the rotation policy and said that it motivates the players to perform well.
It does give people a lot of opportunities: Rahul Dravid on rotation policy for India 'A'
Rahul Dravid represented the Indian cricket team in 164 Tests, 344 ODIs, and one T20I before retiring from international cricket. After hanging up his boots, Rahul Dravid has tried his hand at coaching and has helped a plethora of young Indian cricketers enhance their skills.
Speaking to WV Raman, he discussed how the rotation policy helped remove the insecurity of players in the India 'A' team.
"It does give people a lot of opportunities. Going on a tour they know that they are guaranteed some games, that they're going to get some opportunities. We try and have at least three, if not four, India A tours in a year. In that case, all these boys know that when they perform they're going to get a fair opportunity to push for [a place] in the India team," Rahul Dravid said.
He believed that providing more opportunities to a player who performs well could take his career to new heights. Rahul Dravid stated that many of the current Indian cricket team players achieved success because of this policy, which ultimately helped them gain the national selectors' attention. The 47-year-old continued:
"When you're doing well and are given more opportunities, who knows where that can take you. And you've seen that in the recent results: someone like a Hanuma Vihari, Shreyas Iyer, Manish Pandey and even some of the bowlers like [Mohammad] Siraj, [Navdeep] Saini, [Shardul] Thakur, and a lot of these boys coming through have had that opportunity and have been able to show the selectors, 'hey, look, pick us, we are here and we can perform at this level'."
Rahul Dravid joined the NCA as the Director of Cricket Operations last year. His former India teammate VVS Laxman had recently opined that the partnership of NCA Head Dravid and BCCI President Sourav Ganguly was crucial for Indian cricket's future.