Dravid turns down Indian ‘fascinating’ head coach job
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|| Desk Report ||
Former Indian veteran batsman-turned-captain Rahul Dravid turned down the opportunity to coach the national team citing his family reason, according to Chairman of the Committee of Administrators in BCCI Vinod Rai.
Rai further revealed that Dravid was keen to continue working with the India ‘A’ and Under-19 teams as he’d been delivering wonderful results with them.
“Rahul was very upfront with us. Look I have two boys growing up at home and I have been traveling with the Indian team all over the world and I am not able to give time and attention to them,” said Vinod Rai.
“I think I must stay at home also. And give time to my family.’ I think that was a very fair request and though he would have been uppermost in mind. So, he was very much in the zone of consideration,” Rai told SportsKeeda.
The post of the head coach eventually went to Ravi Shastri, who has been looking after the side after Gary Kirsten, with Dravid out of contention and Kumble’s tenure ending abruptly.
However, Rai feels that the end result was a win-win situation for everyone since CoA believed all three would have been good options as India’s head coach.
“Look, in terms of potential for coaching, Dravid, Shastri and Kumble are the best in the business,” Rai said.
“We definitely talked to Rahul. He was engaged with the Under-19 team and he was involved with them. He had developed a road map on how to develop a team. He was bringing out fantastic results. He wanted to continue because he felt that there were some unfinished tasks with that team and he wanted to do it,” he said further
Dravid was last year appointed the National Cricket Academy (NCA) head chief. Rai, however, revealed that the former India batsman was more than happy to accept the role.
“Dravid is a head coach at NCA. He was very kind and very gracious in accepting that and committing himself to the NCA,” he signed off.
