Kolkata: India made an impressive start in the ‘new era’ under the Rahul Dravid-Rohit Sharma duo in the shortest format, completing a 3-0 clean sweep against New Zealand.
Dravid said he is realistic enough and highlighted that it was not easy for New Zealand to play 3 T20Is in 6 days after the T20 World Cup final. He acknowledged that India have to keep their feet on the ground and need to be realistic about the victory after the side registered a comprehensive 73-run victory in the third and final T20I at the Eden Gardens in Kolkata on Sunday.
“It was a really good series win. Everyone played really well right through the series. It feels nice to start well. But we are also quite realistic. To be honest, we have to keep our feet on the ground and be a bit realistic about this win. Not easy for New Zealand to play a World Cup final and then to turn up three days later and play three games in six days, was never going to be easy for them,” Dravid said during the post-match interview on Star Sports.
Clean sweep complete 💪
India skittle New Zealand out for 111 and win the final T20I by 73 runs to take the series 3-0.#INDvNZ | https://t.co/ZzuqcIe2Ih pic.twitter.com/KJMmGe2G1D
— ICC (@ICC) November 21, 2021
The batting legend also pointed out that the emergence of young players has been positive, that India can take from the series. India gave debut caps to IPL performers Venkatesh Iyer and Harshal Patel in the series.
“Nice from our perspective but we have to keep our foot on the ground, learn from this series and move forward. It’s a long journey ahead over the next 10 months and we’ll have our share of ups and downs.
“It’s been really good to see some of the young guys come through. We have given opportunity to some of the boys who haven’t played a lot of cricket over the last few months with some of our more experienced players taking a break. We saw some of the skills available to us and we will keep building those skills as we move forward,” Dravid said.
Some of the key players from the team were rested for the series as part of workload management. Dravid also highlighted that the side will be much stronger when regular players come back. According to him, it’s also great to have multiple options.
“With some of our players coming back in, it will definitely make the side stronger. But it’s really great to see that we have got options, we can mix and match, we can look at different players at different places. It’s going to be a long season from hereon till the next WC,” he said.
“There’s a lot of games to be played, so we have to do that with some of our players and be realistic with the amount of cricket they can play. It’s nice to see people step up and do well at this stage,” he concluded.
