Ravi Shastri opens up about India's World Cup preparations

India thoroughly dominated the six-match ODI series against South Africa and won it by 5-1 and became only the second team to win 5 matches in the country. They were completely ruthless in their approach and never allowed their opponents to come back in the series barring a blip at the Wanderers in the Pink ODI. The team looks to have covered all the bases well ahead of the World Cup next year in England. However, the head coach of the team Ravi Shastri also seemed satisfied with their preparations for the marquee event.

Apart from the number 4 conundrum in the batting line-up, the Men in Blue are looking a settled side with their captain leading from the front every time. The team management would also love for the middle-order to score runs when it matters in the upcoming matches. They struggled in few games in this series to score at the death and if the likes Ajinkya Rahane, MS Dhoni and Hardik Pandya play to their potential, the Indian team would look unbeatable in any conditions.

Ravi Shastri was extremely upbeat after the series victory over South Africa and felt their World Cup preparations were right on track. “(In terms of World Cup preparation) Very good, because it is one step at a time. We have learnt some good habits on this trip. This is a young side and they have got a lot of tough tours coming up. I think they have conducted and handled themselves extremely well on this tour,” he opined himself in the post-match presser.

No SA can be labelled as weak ever

The 55-year-old also quashed the theories of the South African side being the weakest ever due to the injuries to their key players. They missed their regular skipper Faf du Plessis who had scored a brilliant century in the first game of the series and was ruled out then. The hosts also missed the services of AB de Villiers for the first half of the series and even Quinton de Kock was ruled out after the first couple of games.

“One thing history tells me, I have been coming here since 1992, there is not one South African side in the world that anyone can say is a weak side. You just look at their bilateral record and they are one of the great sides in bilateral cricket,” he added while proudly crediting his boys for all the efforts they put in during the series.

“I have followed this game for a long time. I have been a broadcaster as well and covered a lot of South Africa’s games and I know how they play. So I would like my boys to enjoy every bit of this series win. Whatever the score line is they must enjoy because it doesn’t happen every day,” Shastri concluded.

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