Rahul Dravid backing the young guns despite failure in T20I series

Rahul Dravid who accompanied India to their tour of Sri Lanka said that he wasn’t disappointed at the failure of the young guns. He feels that the youngsters will learn from this exposure and will improve by playing in more challenging conditions which was on offer in Sri Lanka. India lost the three-match T20 series 1-2 after losing out as many as nine of their first-choice players. 

The likes Ruturaj Gaikwad, Devdutt Padikkal, Nitish Rana and Sanju Samson struggled against a quality spin attack led by Wanindu Hasaranga and Akila Dananjaya. Despite their poor outings, Rahul Dravid is hopeful of them learning from the series. He is of the opinion that this experience will help them develop the art of digging it out in low scoring affairs and difficult pitches. 

"I am not disappointed as they are young. They are going to learn and get better only when they are exposed to these kind of conditions and quality of bowling. Sri Lankan team's bowling attack is an international bowling attack," Dravid said while assessing the overall performance in the series.

Dravid blamed the friendly pitches in domestic cricket for the inability of young Indian batsmen to play quality spin. He admitted that there is a lot to learn for the young crop of batsmen of how to counter quality spinners on challenging tracks. 

"They would have liked to score a few more runs. They now have an opportunity to reflect that not all wickets are going to be flat. We need to find ways to scrap and score 130, 140 on these wickets," Dravid observed. 

"It's really a good learning as they are all young players. This is a great opportunity to reflect on these performances and may come up with some slightly better strategies. Let me be fair, we don't get these kinds of conditions very often in T20 cricket but when you do, I think, you have a responsibility to play slightly better," the head of National Cricket Academy said.

Dravid was of the opinion that players of their generation had their fair share of struggles. He felt that the yesteryear batsmen played on spin-friendly track with some even being underprepared. 

"I think the wickets in domestic cricket may have got better -- one thing that is probably different when I was sort of starting while growing up the wickets tended to turn a little bit more. Honestly some of the wickets we used to play used to be under-prepared but wickets have got a bit better in Ranji Trophy which is great. 

I don't think the talent is missing it's just that you need the experience to figure out a few more stroke-making options in these kinds of pitches," he added.

Barring skipper Shikhar Dhawan, India didn’t have an experienced batsman which proved to be their nemesis in the T20I series. Dravid felt that the blend of youth and experience wasn’t there in the last two matches owing to the unavailability of several first-choice players owing to strict covid protocols after Krunal Pandya tested positive for the virus. 

"It needs time and experience and you need to blood young players with experienced players so that you have that cushion. Obviously, last couple of games, we didn't have that cushion, most of the guys other than Shikhar were young."