Watch: Rahul Dravid ‘coach’ Kannada to British High Commissioner Alex Ellis

Former India captain and head of National Cricket Academy (NCA) Rahul Dravid has been taking his coaching stint with the Indian limited-overs side very seriously. Dravid had a moderately successful short stint with the Team India in Sri Lanka, winning the ODI series but losing a closely fought T20 series 1-2.

After his return to India from Sri Lanka, Dravid was seen paying a visit to British High Commisioner to India Alex Ellis in Bengaluru. Ellis posted a video on social media, showing how Drawvid taught him a phrase from the Kannada language, “Bega Odi”, which means ‘one run’. Ellis said Dravid was one of the best players to have played the game.

Alex Ellis took to his Twitter handle to share the video. The post read as, “Cricket expressions in Indian languages part 2. Today, we’re down south in Bengaluru. What better teacher than ‘The Coach’ #RahulDravid, who taught me this in #Kannada”.

Meanwhile, interim head coach Dravid believes that the new crop of Indian batsmen will learn with experience that ‘not all wickets will be flat’ and they need to develop the art of scrapping it out on low-scoring tracks like the ones on offer during the last two T20 Internationals against Sri Lanka. India lost the three-match T20 International series against Sri Lanka 1-2, playing without nine of their first team players due to COVID-19 related isolation.

“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.

But the former India captain and an all-time great did admit that there is lot to learn on how to play on challenging tracks, saying pitches in domestic cricket have become easier to bat as compared to his times. “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, after seeing the Ranas and the Padikkals struggle on a R. Premadasa track where ball wasn’t coming on to the bat.