Guys who help us balance the squad were not available for selection: Rahul Dravid

India lost their fifth consecutive game on South Africa tour on Sunday (January 23). They ended their tour to the rainbow nation with only a solitary win in the first Test at Centurion at the start. India lost the third and final ODI by the barest of margins by four runs and Deepak Chahar‘s valiant fifty at number seven went in vain. They also lost the three-match series 3-0.

Head coach Rahul Dravid was honest in his assessment of the series loss admitting that the team lacked balance due to injuries to certain players. While Dravid didn’t single out missing players, he was certainly talking about the likes of Hardik Pandya and Ravindra Jadeja who bat at six and seven lending balance to the side. But in this series, India’s middle-order was a huge concern and to add to it, there was no solid finisher as well.

“Yeah, we understand the template. Obviously, a large part of the template is also dependant on the balance of your squad. I think if you are a little bit honest, some of the guys who help us balance the the squad out and give us those all-round options at Nos 6, 7 and 8 are probably not here, and available for selection,” he said in the post-match press conference.

Rahul Dravid also hoped for a better playing template in ODIs from India when the injured players come back into the side. “Hopefully, when they (Hardik and Jadeja) come back, it will give us lot more depth, it allows us then to probably play in a slightly different style,” he added.

Rahul Dravid feels batting should improve in middle overs

In almost every match in the ODI series, India lost the momentum in the middle overs allowing South Africa spinners to dominate. Every time a partnership was broken, the visitors lost wickets in clusters and eventually struggled. Rahul Dravid admitted that the batting in the middle overs needs improvement and felt some poor shots were also played at crucial junctures in the game.

“We certainly could do better with batting in middle overs. But having said that, even South Africa who batted first on two occasions scored 290 as well and if I think back and look at the 30th over in both those games, we should have chased them down. We didn’t because we played some poor shots and we didn’t play some smart cricket at critical situations,” the India coach further said.