Asia Cup 2022: Rahul Dravid's Honeymoon Phase Is Over - Reckons Ex-India selector Saba Karim

Ex-India cricketer Saba Karim has hinted that Rahul Dravid’s honeymoon phase as India’s coach is over after India was ousted from Asia Cup 2022 in the Super 4s stage. The former India selector also opined that the upcoming assignments are going to be extremely clinical for the head coach and he would be hoping to get positive results in the upcoming ICC T20 WC 2022 and ODI World Cup in 2023.

Karim also spoke about India’s combination leading up to the T20 World Cup as Rohit Sharma and Co- who were the overwhelming favourite in the Asia Cup 2022  but failed to defend the title and suffered consecutive defeats against Pakistan and Sri Lanka.

Saba Karim believes Rahul Dravid is trying his best to be an alchemist

Speaking on SPORTS18’s daily sports news show ‘SPORTS OVER THE TOP’, the cricketer turned commentator spoke about Dravid’s expectations from Team India. “Well even Rahul Dravid is aware that the honeymoon period is over, and he is trying his best to be an alchemist but so far, such metals haven’t been converted into core. One would expect him to do that.”

Karim added, “This is crunch time for Rahul Dravid. With the World Cup T20 coming up, next year the ODI World Cup coming up. These two big ICC events, if India can win both these championships then only Rahul Dravid will be satisfied with the kind of inputs he has given to team India.”

Rahul Dravid’s success as a coach will only be justified if he wins ICC events and Test series in SENA countries

Speaking about the mixed bag of results under Dravid’s tenure, Karim said the former India skipper would take Test series wins in SENA countries over the bilateral white-ball series wins on any given day. ”

If given an option Rahul Dravid would love to have those Test series win in South Africa and the last Test match in England. He would love to swap that with so many bilateral wins that India has got under his belt. But that’s the nature of the challenges which Rahul Dravid has to face.”

“See Rahul is sensible and intelligent enough to understand that the only way he can define a successful tenure of his coaching career is if India – number one, wins ICC events and number two it starts to win Test series in SENA countries.”

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