Which bowling attack is better? India’s or Pakistan’s? Rahul Dravid says “I see India won the match”

Jammy Sir trying to avoid using ‘Sexy’ for pak bowlers 🤣 #indvPakpic.twitter.com/lT2AAmnNuv

— Mon (@4sacinom) September 3, 2022

He is probed. “Is that exuberant?” “No, no it’s not”. He can’t resist laughing. “Like I told you I can’t tell you that. It’s a four-letter word that starts with s.” The floor again rolls in laughter. He resumes: “Anyway, the point I am trying to make is that we might not look glamorous, but in terms of productivity, we are producing the results. And that’s all that matters.”

Move on, the question after. “What have the talks between you and Virat Kohli been like?” He rocks back on his chair, as he once used to rock back to defend a fiendish bouncer. But this time, he goes for a full-blooded pull. “Do you think that I would be telling the media about the conversations we had been having in private?” He pauses and resumes: “We had a lot of private conversations. Yeh bhi baat karte hein ki Dubai mein khaane-waane cheez kidar ache milte hain, ache restaurants kidhar hain yahan. Uske paas bahut advice hain, woh advice kar rahe hain idhar jao udhar jao!” (We talk about where to eat in Dubai, he has lots of advice, do this, go there!)

Thus, he utterly defused a query with deeper undertones after Kohli had confessed about the mental demons that had afflicted him.

Clearing his throat, he produced a more serious explanation on Kohli’s form and staunchly defended him. “I know for those outside, it is about his numbers, runs and stats. But for us it is about the contributions he can make in different situations, what role he is required to play for the team. It does not have to always be a 50 or a 100, or a big statistic. Even small contributions mean a lot for us. That said, he is a big player and would be keen on putting in some big performances.”

He was happy about what he had seen from Kohli this series—a fighting 35 and an unbeaten 59. “He played very well in the last match, we all were happy. He is coming back after a gap of one month. It is nice to see that he has come back fresh and he is really looking forward to playing the game, not that he was not looking to play the game before,” he said.

“Virat is one of those guys who is always on. It is nice, I am glad that he has had that break and he has come back fresh and relaxed. He has gotten a chance to play in the middle and play a couple of games where he has got to spend some time in the middle and hopefully from here on, he can kick on and have a really good tournament,” he added.

Putting on a more sombre face, he debunked popular perceptions about the fearless philosophy of cricket he demands from the players in the shortest format and whether the top three are buying it. “Everyone is bought into it. We have talked about playing positive cricket but it is about being smart as well as being positive, about getting par plus scores, depending on what par is on that particular wicket and those conditions.”

He points out that the par can change, depending on the nature of the surface, or the dimensions of the ground. “On a wicket with short boundaries and flat wicket, 200 might be par. On some other wickets, it could be 150. In these kinds of tournaments and conditions, 200 runs are difficult to get. But honestly the guys are bought into it (fearless cricket) and looking to play the kind of cricket that T20 cricket demands today.”

A question on India’s experimenting spree had him amused. “I don’t know why people are saying this. If people get injured I have to play other people. Also, conditions dictate us to play different players. Certain opponents make us play slightly different combinations and different skill sets to beat them. We are not going out there thinking this as some kind of experiment,” he said.

He insisted that he wants his best players for every game: “I want the best players to play every match. Over the last six-seven months, whether it is due to injuries or workload management injuries or illnesses, we had to rotate players. Thought that Asia Cup was the final piece before the World Cup, then some of them got injured,” he detailed.

He then looks at his watch and says, “bahut time ho gaya idhar,” (spent too much time here) and then hurriedly picks his bag and rushes to the nets, leaving the audience as much enlightened as entertained, like a heyday Rahul Dravid knock.