Moving on from heartbreaks

A professional sportsperson is immune to heartbreaks and is trained to move on quickly towards impending challenges, India head coach Rahul Dravid said. Dravid detailed how Rohit Sharma’s men coped with the heartbreaking World Cup final defeat to Australia. “It was heartbreaking but you have to move on quickly in international cricket as we now have another important series coming up and all these series count towards trying to qualify for another ICC event in 2025 (WTC final),” Dravid said. “You don’t really have time to remain down. You have to pick yourself up and move on and the boys have done that really well. Sportspersons are very good at moving on as we are forced to do that from the time we are kids,” he added.

Variable bounce

India have never won a Test series in South Africa in their previous seven visits. Rahul Dravid reckoned that unlike in England where the ball swings and in Australia where bouncy tracks are on offer, pitches in South Africa pose a slightly different challenge. “Statistically, it has been a tough country but we have put on good performances and it’s not like it is impossible to play here and I think one thing (that separates it from other SENA nations) is that the bounce tends to be a bit more variable than in other places,” he said. “We have seen there is more bounce on these tracks. Batting is difficult. These are result oriented tracks and, in these conditions, if you miss out on one passage of play, you can be far behind,” he added.