“You’ve got to give him a fair opportunity to rebuild India” - Graeme Smith backs ‘quality man’ Rahul Dravid

Former South African captain Graeme Smith has backed under-fire Team India coach Rahul Dravid, urging critics to give him time to ‘rebuild India’.

Dravid, one of the legends of Indian cricket, took over as head coach from Ravi Shastri after the latter’s tenure ended following the 2021 T20 World Cup. While Dravid made a decent start to his stint as coach, there have been plenty of disappointments over the last year, the latest being the abject surrender in the World Test Championship (WTC) final to Australia.

While a number of cricket pundits and fans have questioned the former India captain’s methods and team selection policy, Smith reckons it’s premature to pass a verdict on Dravid as a coach.

Smith told the Times of India:

“When you get involved in a leadership role in Indian cricket, the expectation is something that you are going to have to come to terms with. There’s a huge quality of players. India can put two or three teams together.

“The biggest challenge in India for a leader is balancing those squads, balancing your tour schedules, the different formats, and those are some of the biggest decisions that are coming ahead of Rahul and his selection team. What do those squads look like, how do they move those teams forward,” he added.

Praising Dravid, Smith said, while concluding thoughts on the Indian great:

“He’s a quality man and a quality performer. He’s shown it right through as a coach. So, you’ve got to give him a fair opportunity now to kind of rebuild India.”

Before the WTC final, India crashed out of the 2022 T20 World Cup following an embarrassing 10-wicket loss to England in the semi-final.

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BCCI has warned Dravid and support staff over failure in ICC events: Reports

According to reports, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has issued a warning to Dravid and Team India’s support staff comprising batting coach Vikram Rathour and bowling coach Paras Mhambrey.

In the wake of India’s inability to perform in multi-nation tournaments, including the Asia Cup, a senior BCCI official was quoted as telling InsideSport:

“It’s not that simple. We can’t say they have not been up to the mark. We have won in India. Reaching the final of the World Test Championship is not a joke. But the performance overseas has not been satisfactory. At the same time, we have to consider the fact that we have a World Cup in four months’ time and we cannot have a knee-jerk reaction. But there will be internal discussions for sure.”

The report added that Dravid’s position as coach is safe till the ODI World Cup at home after which his contract expires.