Former South Africa captain Graeme Smith has thrown his weight behind India head coach Rahul Dravid amid the criticism he’s been getting for India’s loss in the WTC Final 2023 to Australia.
At the Oval, India lost by 209 runs, their second consecutive WTC Final loss, two years after losing to New Zealand in Southampton. Right from the start of the Test match, Rahul Dravid and Rohit Sharma were being criticized for leaving out legendary off-spinner R Ashwin out of the side.
Graeme Smith Extends His Support To Rohit Sharma, Rahul Dravid
The tenure of Rohit Sharma and Rahul Dravid has not brought a single multi-team tournametn silverware yet, with losses in Asia Cup 2022, T20 World Cup 2022, and now WTC Final 2023.
Graeme Smith gave support to Rahul Dravid, saying that India’s schedule is really tight and they don’t have the same squad for all series. The former South African opener asserted that Dravid be given a “fair opportunity” to rebuild the squad.
“The biggest challenge in India for a leader is balancing those squads, balancing your tour schedules, the different formats, and those are some of the biggest decisions that are coming ahead of Rahul and his selection team. What do those squads look like, how do they move those teams forward,” Smith was quoted as saying by Times of India.
“He’s a quality man and a quality performer. He’s shown it right through as a coach. So, you’ve got to give him a fair opportunity now to kind of rebuild India,” he added.
There isn’t much time left for rebuilding as the Asia Cup 2022 is scheduled for August-September and World Cup 2023 for October-November, and failure in that could mean an ouster for both Rohit Sharma and Rahul Dravid.
Graeme Smith says Rohit Sharma’s form is a worry
Graeme Smith opined that Rohit Sharma is good as a captain, but his own form with the bat has been let down since the IPL 2023.
“One of the biggest challenges of a captain is your own personal performance. The pressure of a leader never goes away. Rohit probably needs to just refresh. His own form hasn’t been probably at a level consistently. We look at the IPL over a number of years now and obviously the WTC final…he is having a bit of a rough patch and often that personal performance can just settle things down a little bit.”
“No one is criticizing his captaincy or leadership style. It’s just obviously on the personal performance side, if he can get some really good scores behind him, it takes a lot of that pressure away,” Smith asserted.
