Indian coach drops major hints on India’s squad for Asia Cup 2023: The national men’s Indian cricket team has come under public scrutiny following their humiliating defeat against West Indies in the recently concluded five-game T20I series. Fingers were raised at the Indian captain and head coach for their confusing tactics during the West Indies tour, besides enquiring what changes they would do to the squad during the Asia Cup 2023.
India lost the series decider in Lauderhill, Florida, last night, by eight wickets against the team which failed to qualify for the upcoming ICC Men’s ODI World Cup 2023.
During the post-match presentation, after India were handed a 3-2 series defeat by the Caribbeans, Team India head coach, Rahul Dravid was bombarded with questions on whether the management would keep continue giving chances to the youngsters during the Asia Cup 2023 as well.
Replaying the query, Dravid hinted at the comeback of KL Rahul and Shreyas Iyer, who have been out for a while due to their injuries. Both the batters have shown encouraging signs in the recent past and have also started their training at the National Cricket Academy (NCA).
“We a have few guys coming back from injuries in any case. We have to give them opportunities to play (in Asia Cup). We have a one-week camp in Bengaluru [at NCA] from August 23 for the Asia Cup. We will take it as it comes,” Rahul Dravid said.
KL Rahul suffered a thigh injury during the Tata Indian Premier League (IPL) 2023 and had to leave his side – Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) – midway through the tournament. On the other side, Shreyas Iyer was struck with a back injury, ahead of the IPL 2023.
Both the aforementioned batters are crucial for India in the upcoming ICC events and even in the Asia Cup 2023 as well. Despite testing a number of players, India hasn’t got a worthy replacement for Shreyas Iyer and KL Rahul.
Meanwhile, Rahul Dravid also talked about the challenges he faced with the T20I squad in the Caribbean, which had a string of new faces.
“Regarding the squad, we had in the Caribbean, we probably did not have the flexibility to change the combinations,” he said.
Furthermore, he also explained what the management was trying to achieve after testing different combinations throughout the West Indies tour, which comprised 2 Tests, 3 ODIs and 5 T20Is.
“But I think in the future, we can look at specific areas to get better – depth in the batting is one area we are trying to address. But we also do not want to weaken our bowling attack to ensure our batting goes bigger. We have challenges on that front, and we need to work on that,” he explained.
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