India bowlers must start delivering in final overs: Rahul Dravid

Rohit Sharma’s men have haemorrhaged runs at the tailend of their recent T20 series against South Africa and Australia, conceding 73 in the last five overs of Tuesday’s loss to the Proteas at Indore.

“We have to look at how we can get better,” Dravid told reporters after the match. “Certainly that’s an area that we would like to improve and get better at because margins can be really small in these big tournaments, and every boundary can matter.”

A back injury to Bumrah has been a big blow to India ahead of the showpiece T20 tournament in Australia, which star ts October 16.

Dravid said the team will miss the speedster but are in no hurry to name his replacement.

“Bumrah’s absence is a big loss, he’s been a great player but it happens, it’s an opportunity for someone else to stand up,” Dravid said.

He added that Mohammed Shami would be an “ideal” replacement but it was too soon to tell whether the pacer had recovered from his recent bout with Covid. “We have to get reports as to how he is recovering and what’s his status… and we will take a call,” he said.

UNIQUE PACE AND BOUNCE

Getting used to the “unique” pace and bounce in Australia will be the Indian team’s primary objective at the preparatory camp in Perth ahead of the T20 World Cup, said Dravid.

He said the idea behind reaching Australia well in advance ahead of the World Cup was to familiarise the players with the conditions, especially the ones who’ve not played Down Under.

The team leaves for Perth Thursday morning. The squad will play a couple of practice games before moving to Brisbane for the warm-up games. India open their World Cup campaign against Pakistan on October 23.

“We’ll get an opportunity to spend a few sessions in Perth and then have couple of matches there. Australia is quite unique in terms of the pace and bounce and a lot of our players have not played a lot T20 cricket in Australia,” Dravid said. “It’s important (to go early) as we’ve a young squad which hasn’t played a lot of cricket in Australia. Hopefully that should help us,” said the head coach.