Rahul Dravid Urges U-19 Boys to Focus on World-Cup Ahead of IPL Auction

The IPL Auctions for the 11^th edition of the tournament is just around the corner, and as many as nine junior level Indian players who are currently in New Zealand are among 578 players to go under the hammer. However, Team India’s U-19 coach Rahul Dravid doesn’t want his team to look beyond the upcoming challenge in hand which is the quarter-final of the U-19 World Cup against Bangladesh.

Among the junior level cricketers from the current crop of cricketers playing in the auction are Prithvi Shaw, Himanshu Rana, Shubham Gill, Abhishek Sharma, Riyan Parag, Kamlesh Nagarkoti, Shivam Mavi, Arshdeep Singh and Harvik Desai.

“There’s no point hiding from the fact that it is there. It is around the corner,” Dravid said ahead of the auctions which is slated to be held in Bengaluru this weekend.

“There’s no point living in the bubble and pretending it doesn’t exist. We do discuss it. We’ve spoken about what their focus should be and what their long-term goals are as compared to their short-term goals.”

Dravid emphasised on the fact that the junior boys cannot control what happens in the auctions and one or two auctions won’t have a huge impact on their careers.

“The auction is not something the boys can control,” Dravid said. “One or two auctions won’t really have a long-term impact on their careers. There is an auction every year, but not every year will they have an opportunity to play for India in possibly a World Cup semi-final. That doesn’t come very often.”

Dravid has been part of 6 IPL auctions as a player and part of four auctions as a part of the management group and was well aware of the challenges which a young budding cricketer faces to come in the limelight. He emphasised on the fact the team were focused for the knockout stage of the U-19 World Cup and have their priorities sorted.

“I don’t feel worried about it. I think this group of guys are really focused on playing good cricket here,” he said. “I like the energy and the spirit in this team. We’ve been here for three weeks and we couldn’t have asked for better preparation from the boys. They’ve been superb. We talked about the auction once and we said let’s keep that out of our minds.

“We’re not thinking past the next game against Bangladesh. We lost to them in the Asia Cup. We are aware of the fact that Bangladesh is a good team. We haven’t even looked at the rest of the draw. The focus is right now on doing well against Bangladesh. We had a week off, that was actually part of the challenge, managing at this age, boys are keen to play, at this age a week off can be a long time. So we had a day off and they got out a bit and relaxed. Today had a light session. Sometimes it’s just a question of hoping they don’t get too overexcited.”

Here’s the Newsfeed: 

SA vs IND 2018: “But you’ve got to be really positive and look to score.”- Phehlukwayo

AUS vs ENG 2018: Injured Aaron Finch Ruled Out of Adelaide ODI