‘He is very confident’ – Rahul Dravid on KL Rahul keeping the wickets for India against South Africa in Test series

India’s Head Coach Rahul Dravid recently got his contract as the head coach of the Indian cricket team renewed by the Cricket board and will continue to serve in the top position. Dravid’s first assignment after the renewal of the contract was India’s tour of South Africa, where the team met the hosts for three T20 and ODI matches followed by two test matches. 

Dravid recently appreciated India’s wicket-keeper batsman KL Rahul for his performances in the recent past. He also discussed that KL Rahul is supremely confident to play the role of a wicket-keeper in the red ball cricket for India, after a good run in the White ball Cricket. 

Rahul Dravid on KL Rahul’s recent performances as wicket-keeper for India

“I see it as an exciting challenge and an opportunity for him to certainly do something different. With Ishan [Kishan] not being available, the opportunity came up. We have a couple of keepers we can choose from. Rahul is certainly one. We have had this discussion with him, we’ve discussed this with him. You know, he is very confident, he is very keen on giving it a go. We do understand that it’s probably something he has not done as often. He has been doing it regularly in 50-overs cricket. So that’s certainly tough, you know, to play 50 overs and then bat as well in a full day. That can take a lot out of your body”, Dravid told Espncricinfo. 

He further added, “So he has prepared well, I must say, over the last five, six months. He has done a lot of keeping, even though it’s in the white-ball format. But this will be a new and exciting challenge for him as well. I guess one of the things here is that if anything there is not going to be that much of spin bowling. Probably more pace bowling here than there is spin, so it will ease him into that role a little bit if anything.”

“It’s something that we will see how it goes and how it pans out, but it’s really nice to have someone like him and the options that he provides us. Just having his ability with the bat would be something that would be really useful. And let’s see how he goes with the gloves. I mean, he has kept really well in one-day cricket. So just a question of now transferring that into red-ball cricket for longer”, said Rahul Dravid. 

SA vs IND First Test Playing XI 

South Africa Playing XI: Dean Elgar, Aiden Markram, Tony de Zorzi, Temba Bavuma(c), Keegan Petersen, David Bedingham, Kyle Verreynne(w), Marco Jansen, Gerald Coetzee, Kagiso Rabada, Nandre Burger

India Playing XI: Rohit Sharma(c), Yashasvi Jaiswal, Shubman Gill, Virat Kohli, Shreyas Iyer, KL Rahul(w), Ravichandran Ashwin, Shardul Thakur, Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Siraj, Prasidh Krishna