Cricket

Waiting for official confirmation on Jasprit Bumrah's availability: Rahul Dravid

Sentinel Digital Desk

Our Sports Reporter

GUWAHATI: Head coach of Indian cricket team Rahul Dravid on Saturday said he would wait for an official confirmation regarding the availability of Jasprit Bumrah for the forthcoming T20 World Cup in Australia.

The pacer is out of the ongoing T20I Series against South Africa due to stress fracture in his lower back and is likely to miss the World Cup also.

Talking to the media on the eve of the second match of the series here today Dravid said, "We are awaiting for the official confirmation on the next steps. As of now, he's officially ruled out of this series. But we will see what happens over the next few days."

The ongoing series against South Africa was supposed to fine-tune India's plans for the T20 World Cup. But with uncertainty over Bumrah's fitness Indian selectors were forced to call Mohammed Siraj for the remaining part of the series and the pacer already joined the team yesterday.

The ACA stadium, Barsapara will host the second match of the series on Sunday and the match will be held under flood light. A win in this game will be enough for Team India to take an inaccessible lead in the series.

Meanwhile Dravid today affirmed that the team clearly understands what it has been trying to do and is very much confident of what it is trying to achieve. He was replying to a question about the criticism received over the number of players that have been used in the past few matches and constant changing of playing XI.

The head coach said, "It is a bit unrealistic to expect to keep playing the same players over and over again. We have to give people a workload break."

He also talked about how people from the outside are always not aware of the things going on inside the team. "It doesn't seem apparent from the outside but there are a lot of things that people from outside don't know. In the team, the communication has been very good, " said Dravid.

Dravid during the brief interaction with the media also shared his views on Assam cricket. He said, " I have seen Riyan Parag and a few other cricketers from this state and they have made me believe that there is good potential in cricket in the state."

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