South Africa drubbing an eye-opener: Dravid

INDIA head coach Rahul Dravid on Sunday (23) said the 0-3 drubbing against South Africa in the one-day series is an eye-opener for the Indian side and expressed confidence that the side will only get better from here.

KL Rahul’s side failed to narrow the margin against the Proteas after losing the first two matches despite looking strong to win the third and concluding game at Newlands, Cape Town, on Sunday.

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They fell short of the target of 288 by just five runs despite a late surge from Deepak Chahar who hit a fifty down the order.

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“This series has certainly been a good eye-opener for us. I think it’s going to be a good opportunity for us to reflect and learn and look to keep improving and getting better. We will get better and we will improve no doubt about it,” Dravid, who was serving as India’s head coach in his first overseas series after taking over in November, said.

The 0-3 scoreline is India’s worst performance in the 50-over format in South Africa since the 0-4 loss they faced in a five-game series in 2006-07.

Dravid, who was the captain of the Indian side in that tour, said the team needed to handle the middle overs better, both with the bat and ball.

“We could do better with the batting in the middle overs. I think some of the guys who help us balance the squad out and give us those all-around options at six seven, eight are not here. So hopefully, when they come back, it will give us a little bit more of a depth, which allows us to play in a slightly different style,” he said.

Speaking on the spinners’ less-than-impressive show, the 49-year-old Dravid said, “Without just signalling out the spinners we need to probably improve our wicket-taking options in middle overs. Spinners play a big role in that but even with the quicks coming back and the kind of balls we bowl. We do understand that is an area of the game where we have been behind a little bit.

“There are a lot of learnings from this tour. We need to keep getting better and get the personnel to be able to do those things that we are probably slightly lacking.”

Dravid backed KL Rahul, who captained the national side for the first time in this tour and lost all the four games that he led, saying the latter did a decent job as a starter.

India will host the 50-over World Cup at home in 2023.