‘He is a stalwart of Indian cricket’ – Rohit Sharma reacts as Rahul Dravid appointed Team India’s head coach

Rahul Dravid, on Wednesday (November 4), was appointed as the Team India head coach by the BCCI. He will take over as the coach of the Indian cricket team, replacing Ravi Shastri, post the T20 World Cup 2021 edition. Dravid, former Indian captain, was serving as the National Cricket Academy (NCA) head and was touted to be the frontrunners to succeed Shastri. He has finally signed a two-year deal as India coach, till the 2023 ODI World Cup.

The announcement was made during India-Afghanistan’s T20 World Cup 2021 clash, on Wednesday evening (November 3), at the Sheikh Zayed Cricket Stadium, Abu Dhabi. When Rohit Sharma was told about Dravid’s next role in the post-match presentation, the opener lauded the former Indian captain and said, “We were playing the game (against Afghanistan), so I had no idea (about it). Congratulations to him (Rahul Dravid) for coming back in a different capacity in the Indian team, we look forward to work with him.”

He added, “He (Dravid) is a stalwart of Indian cricket and it will be nice working with him in future.”

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Dravid remains one of the biggest servants of Indian cricket. Despite retiring from international cricket in 2012, he still contributes to the cricketing development in the country. After retirement, he took over as the India A and U-19 coach from 2016-2019, guiding the U-19 team to 2018 World Cup glory. Since then, he has served as the NCA head, supplying young talents to the national side by grooming them consistently and monitoring the key injured Indian players in the academy, in Bengaluru.

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It is very much likely that Rohit and Rahul will form the captain-coach pair for India in T20Is, as Virat Kohli is set to step away as captain from the shortest format post the ongoing World Cup. While his ODI captaincy will also be discussed depending on India’s run in the showpiece event, Kohli is expected to remain the Test captain. Thus, Dravid is most likely to start his tenure as India coach with split captaincy within the national side across formats.