'He doesn't drop a player after 1 or 2 bad performances' - Avesh Khan lauds Rahul Dravid for backing him despite three wicketless outings

Team India’s emerging pacer Avesh Khan has heaped praise on head coach Rahul Dravid and said that the latter never drops a player after one or two bad performances on the field. Avesh broke the back of the South African batting line-up with an outstanding four-wicket haul in the fourth T20I in Rajkot on June 17 to level the five-match series 2-2.

Speaking about Dravid’s greatness as a mentor, Avesh went on to say he ensured that the team remained unchanged throughout the series and showed faith in him despite him having gone wicketless in the first three games. It is to be noted that India have two more fast bowlers to their attack Umran Malik and Arshdeep Singh who are warming the bench as of now.

“The team hasn’t changed over four games, so credit to Rahul (Dravid) sir. He gives chances to everybody and intends to give them a long enough run. He doesn’t drop a player after one or two bad performances because you cannot judge a player on the basis of one or two games. Everyone is getting enough matches to prove themselves”, said Avesh Khan during the post-match interview.

“I had zero wickets in three games but Rahul sir and the team management gave me another opportunity today and I ended up picking four wickets,” he added.

It’s in my hands to bowl well, not pick wickets: Avesh Khan

Avesh accounted for the likes of Dwaine Pretorius, Rassie van der Dussen, Marco Jansen, and Keshav Maharaj respectively to finish with figures of 4/18 from his four overs at an economy rate of 4.5. Explaining about how he planned his bowling, Avesh said that he aimed at delivering stump-to-stump and tried to hit the hard lengths on a wicket that had variable bounce.

“Whenever we are batting first, I always end up asking the batters how the wicket played, whether it was two-paced or not. I spoke to Ishan (Kishan) today and he said that hard-length balls aren’t easy to play; some are bouncing, some are stopping and the others are keeping low. Then I planned to attack the stumps and bowl the hard lengths consistently. It’s in my hands to bowl well, not pick wickets,” Avesh told Ishan Kishan in a post-match interaction.

“The slower ball wasn’t very effective on today’s wicket, so I tried to bowl hard lengths with the occasional bouncer to change things up. 170 was a very good total on this wicket and all we wanted to ensure was pick a couple of wickets in the powerplay,” he added.