CHENNAI: From the moment his team laid hands on the U-19 World Cup trophy, Rahul Dravid has been guarded about the future of the winning stars. On Monday, after arriving from New Zealand, the coach once again reiterated the need to manage the players in order to make their transition to the senior level easy.
Citing the 2012 tournament, where Unmukt Chand’s side won the trophy, Dravid pointed out that four from the Australian team (losing finalists) had already gone on to play for their senior side, whereas only one from India received the national cap. “It is interesting... the result of the final was that India beat Australia but six years down the line, only one of those boys have played for India, while 5-6 of them have gone on to represent Australia,” he said. Cameron Bancroft, Travis Head, Ashton Turner, and Gurinder Sandhu graduated to the senior side, while Sandeep Sharma was the lone Indian.
Notably, Chand has fallen off the radar after being in the fringe set-up. The Delhi batsman was even ignored during the recent IPL auctions. “Talent is there, ability is there, it’s about managing themselves. How to deal with pressure that will come as U-19 champions. It’s not easy to get into the India side. At least if they become good first-class cricketers, from then on, it becomes a stepping stone to play for India,” Dravid said.
That the IPL auction was scheduled in the middle of their campaign meant Dravid had to keep his players away from distractions. He admitted that it was the most stressful period of the tournament. “The week during the auction was a bit stressful but credit to the boys. Once that was done, they came back to practice and switched on. Only those three days, I was a bit worried.
We had some loose curfews, sometimes they followed it. What impressed me was the level of maturity they showed in the age of social media,” he said.
The spotlight has been on the former India captain as he favoured working with the youngsters as against going after a lucrative IPL contract. ‘The Wall’ as he is popularly called, credited the backroom and National Cricket Academy staff, who spent considerable amount of time with the colts. “The real satisfaction is the process that was followed over the last 14-16 months. The whole planning and preparation that has gone into, not necessarily for this World Cup, but in developing these players. It was a team effort — from guys behind the scenes, selectors, NCA, BCCI setting up games. Winning a tournament like this is a reflection of the teamwork,” he added.
Having done away with the practice of players representing the country in multiple U-19 World Cups, Dravid said he would like the current batch to feature in senior meets as against U-23 events. In fact, prior to the World Cup, Dravid had requested the Mumbai Cricket Association to include Prithvi Shaw in their Ranji side. “I feel that once the boys are good enough, they should go on to play men’s cricket, especially those who have already played first-class cricket. Five boys from last year’s World Cup qualified to play this time. But we made the decision to not pick them as I felt it will be better for them to play U-23 and senior cricket,” he added.