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Watch: Rahul Dravid’s puzzling comment over Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli’s T20I future leaves everyone guessing

It appeared that India was looking at a full-time transition in T20Is with Hardik Pandya at the helm. But now, India’s stance on fielding a young side has left everyone confused. The senior crop of players such as Virat Kohli, KL Rahul and Rohit Sharma have not played a T20I game since the World Cup semi-final against England.

Rahul Dravid had earlier said that India will field a young team under Pandya. Pandya had earlier captained India in the T20I series against New Zealand in December and also in the three T20Is against Sri Lanka. He will skipper India against New Zealand in the T20Is. This can be a graph to see how Pandya is shaping up as a skipper but now it appears that the 29- year -old has still not been declared as the captain in T20Is by Dravid.

Certain priorities need to be given to certain white-ball tournaments: Rahul Dravid

Rohit has put out all the indications that he still wants to continue in T20Is. The head coach said for the record that the reason that Kohli and Rohit have not been part of the T20Is was primarily to manage the workload as 2023 is a World Cup year. Workload management has been a big talking point in Indian cricket for some time now.

“There are certain priorities we need to give to certain white-ball tournaments,” Dravid said. “So the priority after last year’s T20 World Cup has been these six games and Virat has played all these six games and he will get a bit of a break along with Rohit,” Dravid said, The games he was referring to were three T20Is against Sri Lanka and three T20I against New Zealand.

Here is the video

https://youtu.be/crNZar1VxA8

These statements coming from the head coach have controverted what he conveyed in the ODIs against Sri Lanka. He had earlier indicated that India are looking to make a new team in T20Is as teams look at the next T20I World Cup which will be held in West Indies and the USA.

“For us, obviously, from the last semi-final (in the T20 World Cup) that we played against England, only 3-4 boys are playing in the XI (against Sri Lanka). We are slightly in a different stage of looking at the next cycle of T20, so ours is a slightly younger team and for us to play against the quality of Sri Lanka is a fantastic experience. The good thing is that a lot of focus is on the ODI World Cup and World Test Championship, so the T20s give us the opportunity to try out these guys,”