Rahul Dravid will check ‘bandwidth’ before coaching decision

With the BCCI looking for a head coach on a permanent basis, the name Rahul Dravid keeps coming up. While there are other names in the hat, Rahul Dravid is one of those names that receives the higher reckoning compared to the others. With team director Ravi Shastri’s contract renewal looking all the more unlikely, Dravid is expected to take over the reins.

However, despite being offered the top job, Dravid has said that he will have to check the ‘bandwidth’ before taking a call on what needs to be done.

“Any decision that I make at this stage of my life would depend on whether I have the bandwidth to do all of these things,” Dravid said during an interaction when asked specifically whether he is ready to take up the chief coach’s role in the senior India team.

At the moment, Dravid serves as the coach of the India ‘A’ side as well as the U19 side that made it to the final of the World Cup in February this year.

“Anything that comes back to you needs to be weighed with lot of consideration, not only in terms of whether you feel you want to do it but also time that is involved in doing lot of these things — what does it entail and what does it require, can you devote time and energy, anything that you would want to do, you want to ensure you are completely 100 percent focused on it.”

He added that commitment is the most important aspect of the coaching job. He added that it was important for him to get the experience required for a coach before getting his hands dirty by doing the job.

“It’s not important whether results come or not but can you give that level of commitment and level of time for doing anything like that (coaching India). Just like in cricket, I mean if I wanted to be a really good batsman, I recognized that time, sacrifices and devotion whatever required getting it done and what sacrifices I had to make for it.

“I am quite young in this kind of space. There were a lot of things I didn’t think as a player. As a captain, I had to think about strategy and things like that but not to the depth of what you need to do as a coach. Your mind and energy are diverted to other things, so you think a lot about things that I didn’t think as a player. You make mistakes and then I realize how I could have things differently,” said ‘The Wall’.

Dravid also underlined what he learnt as a coach while coaching the U19 cricket team during the World Cup.

“Forget about the result but I was thinking what we could have done differently. We got beaten by a team that bowled 46 overs of fast bowling. Since it was in the sub-continent, we prepared as we thought there could be a lot of spin bowling. We prepared on how do you play spin and a team came from the left-field (blind side) and beat you with 46 overs of medium pace. It started at 9 am and ball seamed all around,” said Dravid.