Before facing Pakistan in the Asia Cup Super 4, Team India head coach Rahul Dravid had all praise for his team's bowling attack. Dravid claimed during a press conference that while India's bowling attack might not be as flashy, they still do the job. He was trying to explain this and wanted to probably use the word 'sexy', but he used his quick thinking to still get the point across.
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However, quite a few key bowlers are missing the Asia Cup due to injuries, Jadeja being the latest one. Apart from Jadeja, fast bowlers Jasprit Bumrah and Harshal Patel are also missing the Asia Cup for India. As per Dravid, the current situation doesn't stop them from using this tournament as an opportunity to build and grow the team for the World Cup.
"There are a few key players missing from this team. But it's probably true of one or two other teams as well, who are probably missing one or two key players. That can happen, but it doesn't stop us from using this tournament as a really good opportunity to build and grow our team for the World Cup," the coach said.
"And of course, it gives us the opportunity, I guess, in a lot of ways to look at other players who are potentially vying for spots, who are in contention and are looking for one or two spots, see how they perform and to give other people some opportunities as well. And of course, we know that once hopefully guys like Bumrah, Harshal and Jadeja are back then, as and when, we can respond to that and react to that," he added.
The former India captain also mentioned that the team management has always been trying to build a pool of players who can step in when key players get injured.
"But if for some reason unfortunately if they have to miss out then we've developed some other players, we've tried to build a back-up, we've tried to build a group and that's really been our endeavour right through...we're trying to build a bigger pool of players that can step in because as we've seen obviously with the kind of challenges we've had with Covid as well, and with injuries you've got to have back-up, you've got to have people who can step in any given situation," he said.
"When people miss out due to injuries, it gives us the chance to build that squad and grow that squad. Of course, we'd love to have our guys with experience and our best players playing all the time but it might not happen," he added.
