Rahul Dravid plans to divide his time between India A and U19 teams

Former India captain and the present coach of India A team and U19 team, Rahul Dravid has had a great time guiding the teams. The under-19 team reached the finals of the Junior World Cup, 2016 and the A team has won at home as well as away along with that a lot of players have been groomed through him to play for the senior team and have been able to come good to the expectations.

But with the two teams scheduled to play a lot of cricket in the near future with a few series’ clashing, Dravid wants to divide his time between India A and India under-19 teams. This turns out to be a great news for both the teams as he can be with teams when they tour South Africa and England respectively later this month.

It has been learnt that Dravid is expected to initially travel to England with the U-19 side that will play two Test matches against the home side between July 23 and August 3. He then wants to move to South Africa where the A side will be playing two unofficial Test matches against the home team from the second week of August.

The arrangement will mean that Dravid may have to skip the limited-overs matches of both the teams. Which suggests that his emphasis is on the longer format.

Problem for BCCI

The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), that has appointed the former India captain as the coach for two years for both India A and India U-19 teams, is comfortable with Dravid’s plan, but it has not yet finalised the schedule of the coach. It is likely that the BCCI officials will talk to Dravid in a day or two, Mumbai Mirror reported. However, the problem before the BCCI is that it has to make alternative arrangements when Dravid is with one of the two teams. It is also said that RD will hand over the U-19 side to WV Raman in England after the two Test matches.

Nothing finalised

As for South Africa, nothing has yet been finalised. The BCCI says even the tour schedule is still not out yet with the Australia A side pulling out of the competition. The first game of the tri-series is scheduled to begin on July 26 in Pretoria but there is a chance that the tri-series could be converted into a bilateral series, as recently the Australia A side pulled out due to their ongoing pay dispute.