Indian cricket team Rahul Dravid
Credit: Reuters Photo
Ahmedabad: As a parting statement to his despondent wards, Indian coach Rahul Dravid spoke about how they should, and most likely would, be up and get on with their job.
Perhaps borrowing from his own experience, the Indian coach, who has played in three World Cups on the losing side, said: “Yeah, of course everyone is disappointed. There were a lot of emotions in that dressing room. It was tough to see as a coach because I know how hard these guys have worked, what they've put in, the sacrifices they've made."
He continued: “It's tough, but that's sport. That happens. It can happen. And the better team won on the day. And I'm sure that the Sun will come up tomorrow morning. We'll learn from it. We'll reflect, and we’ll move on, as will everyone else. I mean, that's what you do as a sportsman. You have some great highs in sport, and you have some lows in sport. And you keep moving on. You don't stop because if you don't put yourself on the line, you don't put yourself in games like these, you don't experience the great highs. And neither do you experience the great lows. And if you don't do that, you don't learn.”
When asked about what went wrong on the day, Dravid spent a moment or two rummaging through the night in his head before coughing up that they were 30-40 runs short.
That, obviously, didn’t seem the case looking at the scorecard because Australia eventually ended up winning by six wickets with seven overs to spare. Dravid, however, argued that the bowling unit’s calibre could have delivered had the dew not set in.
“I don't think we can take all the credit for the creation of this bowling attack, because it's been around for a long time,” he said referring to the quality of this attack. "A lot of the three fast bowlers who bowled for us right through this tournament have been around for a while, really experienced fast bowlers as well.
“Some of the tactics and the strategies and some of the execution that we saw across the tournament was absolutely fantastic. The bowling has been truly spectacular right through this tournament. Today was one of those days where we just didn't give them enough runs to be able to work with, and the dew also came in. These things happen,” he added in resignation.