Dravid’s tough reply to question on Kohli, Rohit’s retirement after T20 WC exit
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India’s approach of starting slow, keeping wickets in hand and then aiming for a massive finish in the last five overs of the innings backfired on a placid Adelaide track as England mauled them by 10 wickets to set up a T20 World Cup final with Pakistan. England bowlers dominated proceedings for the first 15 overs as India did not even manage to score at 7 runs per over. After KL Rahul’s (5 off 5) dismissal, Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli really found it difficult to hit the boundaries as dot balls galore. Rohit, in fact, Rohit was dismissed for a below-par 27 off 28 balls. In a semi-final, on a placid batting track, striking at less than a run a ball was bound to hurt India. Kohli, at the other end, wasn’t going all guns blazing either.
India’s matters were complicated when their saviour Suryakumar Yadav was dismissed after hitting a six and four. Throughout this T20 World Cup, Suryakumar Yadav has been making up for the below-par strike rate of the top order but on Thursday, it wasn’t to be as he was dismissed by Adil Rashid for 14 off 10. If it wasn’t for a grand finish from Hardik Pandya (63 off 33), in which he scored 50 runs off his last 18 deliveries, India would have even struggled to cross 150. India posted 168 for six after being put into bat.
Watch: Dravid consoles teary-eyed Rohit in heartbreaking scenes after India loss
As it turned out, it was nowhere near enough as Jos Buttler and Alex Hales manhandled the Indian bowlers to put up an unbroken record opening stand and win the match by 10 wickets with 20 balls to spare.
Naturally, India’s head coach Rahul Dravid was asked some hard questions about the future of India’s T20I side and the seniors in it. The likes of Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli, Ravichandran Ashwin, Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Mohammed Shami have reached the twilight of their careers at least in the shortest form of the game. No matter how hard they try, their template of building an innings and then cashing it in the late overs, has won India any ICC tournament of late.
Dravid, however, chose not to be too critical this early. This is how the conversation between the reporter and Dravid panned out.
Reporter: “The team is going to NZ under Hardik. At this point, a cycle has ended the team. The next is after 2 years. You said about reflection, so what exactly would be the future of Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli, Ashwin, and Bhuvneshwar’s future in terms of T20 cricket?”
Dravid: “It’s too early to talk about it, just after a semi-final game… These guys have been terrific performers for us. We’ve got a couple of years to reflect on it. These are some really quality players here. Not the right time to talk about or think about this stuff now. We’ll have enough time, enough matches as we go on ahead and try to prepare for the next World Cup.”
After the World Cup exit, India will next travel to New Zealand for a white-ball series under Hardik Pandya’s leadership as the likes of Rohit, Kohli, KL Rahul have opted to rest.
