Looking to finalise top 20 players for T20 WC 2022 as quickly as possible: Rahul Dravid

The T20 World Cup 2021, held in UAE last year, emerged as a massive disappointment for team India, where they suffered an early group stage exit after being outplayed by Pakistan and New Zealand at the beginning of the campaign. 

The Men in Blue, under their new captain Rohit Sharma will look to turn things around this time in Australia and win the tournament to end team India's ICC trophy drought. Notably, team India has not won the trophy since the first World Cup in 2007. 

Meanwhile, the head coach of team India, Rahul Dravid, speaking in the media conference after the conclusion of the South Africa series, opened up on the plans and preparations for the marquee event and revealed that they are looking to finalise India's top 18-20 players for the upcoming edition of the Men's T20 World Cup 2022 as soon as possible.

"As you come closer and closer to the event, you want to firm up your final squad, or if not, you want to have some contingencies in the kind of world we live in today. Obviously, you want to take only 15 to the World Cup but (need to identify) top 18 to 20 players," Dravid said in the press conference after India's series against South Africa.

Dravid further added that there could be some forced odd changes in the squad if an individual gets injured. He also revealed that management is keeping a close eye on all the upcoming T20I series to identify the top players as quickly as possible. 

"Obviously, there could be odd changes due to injury and things that are beyond your control, but we are going to start looking to firm up that squad as quickly as possible," he further said.

"Whether that will happen in the next series [Ireland] or series after that [England] is hard to tell, but we are certainly looking to do that as quickly as possible," he further added.

Notably, team India, led by Hardik Pandya with non-bound Test players, is going to tour Ireland next week for the two-match T20I series, scheduled to be played on June 26 and June 28 in Dublin. 

The Men in Blue, who are currently in England, will play a three-match T20I series there, which will be followed by as many ODIs. After that, they will travel to the West Indies to play 3 ODIs and 5 T20Is.