IND vs AFG: Not A Lot Of Time To Prepare - Rahul Dravid Wants Players To Be Flexible Ahead Of T20 World Cup 2024

India head coach Rahul Dravid opened up about the roadmap for the upcoming T20 World Cup 2024. He admitted that there’s not a lot of time to prepare for the event so players need to be flexible.

India as a group will have very little time to prepare for the upcoming T20 World Cup. The event is slated to take place in USA and Caribbean in June 2024 but the Men in Blue aren’t slated to play any matches.

The upcoming three-match series against Afghanistan will be the last that India will be playing ahead of the World Cup. Therefore they need to tick most of the boxes right in the the three games and look at the combination for the tournament.

While players won’t be playing any more games as a group, they will be having an opportunity in the IPL. Therefore the tournament becomes extremely important for the players as it will allow them to get in the groove for the World Cup.

Rahul Dravid admitted that they won’t have time to prepare for the T20 World Cup 2024 and therefore they need to focus on three games against Afghanistan. Speaking to reporters, he explained:

“After the last T20I World Cup (2022) we prioritised the ODI World Cup. But we don’t have that many T20I games after that (ODI WC). So, this T20I WC is slightly different in the sense that (there’s) not a lot of time to prepare for that. We have to rely on the cricket that we have and also a little bit of the IPL.”

IND vs AFG: It is all about adapting while going ahead – Rahul Dravid

Rahul Dravid was aware of the fact that compared to the last two World Cups, they won’t be able to do much preparation. The Indian head coach expects his players to adapt to conditions as quickly as possible. He elaborated:

“We might not get too many chances to play together, so we will have to work around that. You just need to adapt and be flexible. We had a good preparation leading into the one-day WC.

“Even in the last T20I World Cup, we had a lot of games together as a group. This time we won’t have that (many matches) probably, but it is all about adapting while going ahead.”

Apart from the players, a lot would be reliant on Rahul Dravid as well. This time around, it is expected that a lot of young players will be part of the squad. Therefore head coach needs to groom them well for the big stage.