Former captain Rahul Dravid will coach the Indian limited-overs team on their tour of Sri Lanka in July as current head coach Ravi Shastri will be busy with Virat Kohli’s Test side in England during that time.
Team India will be heading to Sri Lanka to play a series of 3 ODIs and 3 T20Is from July 13 to 27. The squad will need a support staff on the tour as the current crop of coaches, led by Shastri, will be in England with the Test team where Kohli’s team will be taking on Joe Root’s side in a series of 5 Tests from August 4.
Dravid, who had been the batting consultant for the Indian senior team on their tour to England in 2014, is the current head of cricket operations at the National Cricket Academy in Bengaluru. He also monitors the progress of the India A and U-19 teams.
Senior players like Shikhar Dhawan, KL Rahul and Shreyas Iyer will be headlining a young Indian team in the limited-overs series in the island nation and will get to work Dravid, who has coached most of the current crop of youngsters during his stint as the India A coach.
Dravid is likely to take his own support staff to Sri Lanka as India’s bowling, batting and fielding coaches – Bharat Arun, Vikram Rathour and R Sridhar – will also be with Shastri in England. Incidentally, the Indian team last won a Test series in England under Dravid’s captaincy back in 2007.
Dravid led Team India to victory in the second Test in Nottingham while the other two matches they drew at the Lord’s and The Oval in London to clinch the Pataudi Trophy. Australian great Greg Chappell was India’s coach back then.
The current Indian Test squad will be leaving for their England tour later this month where they will face New Zealand in the ICC World Test Championship from June 18 at the Ageas Bowl in Southampton. They will then get over a month to prepare for the Test series against England in the United Kingdom.
England will host India in the five-match series in Nottingham, London, Leeds and Manchester between August 4 and September 14.
