Rahul Dravid Lauds India’s Youngsters But Cautions Yashasvi Jaiswal

Rahul Dravid, the head coach of the Indian cricket team, is witnessing another phase of transition, this time as a coach and a person responsible for taking the younger group forward. Cheteshwar Pujara, who had held the No. 3 position for India for a significant part of the last decade, lost his place and Shubman Gill has replaced him. Additionally, Yashasvi Jaiswal, whom Rohit Sharma believes could have a long-lasting impact on Indian cricket as a left-hand opener, has also been given an opportunity to prove himself. Both Gill and Jaiswal have worked with Dravid in the age-group category and hence, it will be interesting to see how these players perform.

In his debut match in Dominica last week, Jaiswal was mighty impressive as he cracked a maiden Test century and ended with 171. Dravid is not surprised by Jaiswal's performance as he believes the young player's ability to switch between an attacking and defensive approach is a testament to the strength of the domestic cricket system. Now, ahead of the second Test in Port-of-Spain, starting on Thursday, Dravid praised the environment created within the team, which allows young talents to come in and showcase their skills right away.

“It's nice from our perspective as a coach to see young players come in, perform straightaway and do really well, whether it's Yashasvi in the last game or the way Shubman has grown over the last six-eight months or seeing the way Ishan [Kishan] came in and kept in the last game on a difficult wicket, he did a really good job,” Rahul Dravid said ahead of the second Test match.

Rahul Dravid credited the domestic system, National Cricket Academy (NCA), and other stakeholders for their role in nurturing and providing opportunities to emerging talents in Indian cricket. The success of these young players in both one-day and T20 formats has been encouraging, and the head coach gave credit to the system back home behind the development of the players.

The head coach also had a few words of caution for the young players. He said that these players should always look to keep improving as teams will come up with new tactics to confront them.

“The challenge for Jaiswal is to respond to the tactics and strategies West Indies are going to come up with in this game. Because today, as a young player, once you get known, once you start performing well, teams start planning and preparing for you better so you need to respond to that as well,” Rahul Dravid added.