Coaching India depends on whether I have that capacity, says Dravid
NEW DELHI: Former captain Rahul Dravidon Wednesday made it clear that any decision on taking up coach’s role with the senior Indian team will depend on whether he has the time and “bandwidth” for the high-profile job.
With Ravi Shastri’s contract as team director coming to an end after the completion of ICC World T20, Dravid’s name has been doing the rounds for the job but he did not give any conclusive reply.
“Any decision that I make at this stage of my life would depend on whether I have the bandwidth to do all of these things,” Dravid said during an interaction when asked specifically whether he is ready to take up the chief coach’s role in the senior India team.
The 43-year-old is currently India-A and U-19 coach apart from being a ‘mentor’ with Delhi Daredevils. “It takes time. You can never really say that now you are ready and now you are not. That’s an experience; a learning. You have to do it to only know. Every day you do it and you want to learn.”
He did say that any decision he takes will be after a lot of consideration. “Anything that comes back to you needs to be weighed with lot of consideration, not only in terms of whether you feel you want to do it but also time that is involved in doing lot of these things — what does it entail and what does it require, can you devote time and energy, anything that you would want to do, you want to ensure you are completely 100 per cent focused on it.”
Dravid had a word of caution for those who only want to play IPL and nothing else. “If you look at this World T20 at Virat Kohli, Joe Root and Kane Williamson, they are all classical players. I used to tell my U-19 boys that why sell yourself for less when you can play all the formats. There are enough batsmen and bowlers who have done that. You don’t have to stick only to T20. That’s a dangerous trend to go down. Only two months of this cricket.” ‘DON’T JUDGE PLAYERS BASED ON AUCTION PRICE’ Dravid also said that he has never judged players based on the price that they commanded at the IPL auctions as it is not always a true reflection of their abilities and skill sets.
“I understand how an auction works. What one actually earns in auction is not reflection of who you are. A lot of things happen in auction. You can’t control prices. Just because someone got so much money does not mean that the franchise considers him more important player than another,” Dravid said in reference to a question on Pawan Negi being paid ` 8.5 crore by Daredevils.