Indian cricket team head coach Rahul Dravid said tournaments like the World Test Championship and Border-Gavaskar Trophy are of high importance for team in an extremely busy cricket-heavy calendar, while managing the workload of key players like Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma. The hosts, who have already won the India vs New Zealand T20 series after taking 2-0 lead, will go up against New Zealand in the third and final ODI, Tuesday.
Speaking in a presser ahead of the 3rd ODI, Dravid said: “We need to give certain priorities to certain white-ball tournaments due to the amount of cricket that we’re playing. The Border-Gavaskar Trophy and the World Test Championship are very important for us. There are certain white-ball tournaments that we have to prioritize.”
After the end of IND-NZ series, a four-match Test series between India and Australia will be played in Nagpur, starting from February 9.
Dravid said that once the New Zealand series gets over, both Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma will be rested so that they can be at their fullest for the 'Australia challenge'.
“The priority after the T20 World Cup has been these six games and Virat has played all these six games. He will get a break, along with Rohit and a few other guys in the next week so that they come refreshed on the 2nd for a good one week camp before we play Australia. So we just have to prioritize certain formats,” Dravid added.
The former India batter said a wicket-keeper should first be a good batter to get into the Indian side.
“The days of a specialist wicket-keeper are gone unfortunately. We’re lucky that all the guys in contention have done well as batters. Be it Ishan Kishan or KS Bharath or KL Rahul, unfortunately Rishabh Pant is injured. But all these guys are wicket-keeping batters, and in this day you have to contribute with the bat significantly. Even Jitesh Sharma in the T20 format, he has the ability to bat at a very good pace as he’s shown in the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy and the IPL,” said Dravid.