Bengaluru: India Head Coach Rahul Dravid on Saturday did not open up tacitly on the question of giving a chance to players, who have not played much in this ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup, in tomorrow’s match against the Netherlands.
“I mean, honestly, we have had six days off from the last game. So, we are pretty well rested and the guys are in good shape. That is all I will say without giving away the level.
So, we have had six days off, we have one game before the semifinal. Boys are rested. So that is all I will say. You can make your own inferences,” he told reporters on the eve of the match at Chinnaswamy Stadium here.
Replying to a pertinent question, Dravid said the single-pointed thinking is to field players who are in the best possible mental and physical space to be able to play in the knockouts.
However, the Head Coach did not spell out the names of those players who are in that space.
“To be honest with you, you are at a pointy end in a tournament now. So now at this stage it’s about just focusing on getting the guys who you think are going to be playing in the 11 in the best possible space mentally and physically to be able to play that semifinal and hopefully the final if we earn it. So that will be the single point of thinking,” he said.
“It is not about there are times for larger picture thinking and there are times for narrow focus thinking in my opinion and now’s the time for sure narrow focus thinking if everyone is fit,” India Head Coach added.
However, during the net practice session the picture began to get clearer of what is running in the mind of Team India’s think tank.
After Rohit Sharma and Shubman Gill batted in the nets as openers, simultaneously Ishan Kishan took guard in the third net as the third opening option.
Even Shardul Thakur and Ravichandran Ashwin batted in the net for an extended time, with Rohit and Dravid chatting and taking a close look at them. After they had batted, the training session was wrapped up.
Ishan and Shardul have not played too many games in the tournament, but Ashwin has not got any match so far.
UNI
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