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Experience as Royals mentor will help in coaching: Dravid
Mumbai: Former India cricket captain Rahul Dravid said the experience he gathered during his stint as mentor of Indian Premier League (IPL) side Rajasthan Royals will come handy when he starts coaching the India A and Under-19 teams.
“The stint with Royals as mentor will definitely help me. The fact that I have spent a couple of years at Royals in the role of a mentor, I have seen the other side of what the sport is,” Dravid, who was present as a chief guest at the convocation of International Institute of Sports Management along with Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, said.
The batting legend was appointed mentor of Royals in 2014.
“I have always seen it as a player and I have spent many years as a player. The couple of years that I spent outside in the management and the coaching side of things, there is a lot of learning that you get all the time, and the more you do, the more and the better you get. It is like playing. I am looking forward to it.”
Dravid, who scored 24,177 runs across all formats of the game, stressed that he is not interested to coach the India senior team, adding that team director Ravi Shastri and his group is doing a good job.
“I am not thinking about it. I am only focussed on the India A and the India U-19 coaching jobs at the moment. Ravi and his team are doing a fantastic job with India and long it may continue. I have no aspirations to go up to that level at the moment,” he said.
The 42-year-old said his job will be to help players get to the next level and not look into team selection.
“The selectors and the senior team management generally have a vision as to what sort of players they are looking to pick. Sometimes you pick young players in India A, sometimes you pick players who are looking to make a comeback and want to push for the national team, he said.
“I see my job as coaching the players they have selected and not in selection. My job is to coach and try to help them to get to the next level. I don’t think you need to teach India A players how to play, they all know how to bat and bowl and they are there because they are successful,” Dravid concluded.
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Sunil Gavaskar gives his opinion of GT allrounder Rahul Tewatia
The left-handed batsman from Haryana is garnering praise from all quarters for the way he’s finishing games regularly in the most exciting IPL season.
Gavaskar reckons Tewatia’s whirlwind knock in Sharjah (in IPL 2020) where he smashed West Indies pacer Sheldon Cottrell for five sixes in an over, gave him the confidence that he belongs to the big stage.
Speaking on Cricket Live on Star Sports, Gavaskar said, “That assault on Sheldon Cottrell in Sharjah gave him the belief to do the impossible and the confidence that he belongs here. We saw the impossible (he did with the bat) the other day as well. There’s no twitching or touching the pads (which shows a batter’s nervousness) when he bats in the death overs. He just waits for the ball to be delivered and plays his shots. He’s got all the shots in the book, but most importantly his temperament to stay cool in a crisis is brilliant.”
Gavaskar has also nicknamed the 28-year-old cricketer the ‘ice-man’ and lauded Tewatia’s ability to remain unruffled during the tense moments.