Chairman of the Committee of Administrators, Vinod Rai, revealed that the panel had approached Rahul Dravid to be the head coach of Team India, however, he denied the opportunity to give preference to his family.
After Anil Kumble’s controversial ending of his tenure with the men in blue in 2017, following with his fallout with Virat Kohli, Rai revealed that the CoA wished Rahul Dravid to take the position. But the former batsman, who was already coaching the India A and Under-19 teams, decided to walk over the offer.
“Rahul was very upfront with us,” Rai told SportsKeeda. He said, “look I have two boys growing up at home and I have been travelling with the Indian team all over the world and I am not able to give time and attention to them, I think I must stay at home also. And give time to my family.’ I think that was a very fair request and though he would have been uppermost in mind. So, he was very much in the zone of consideration.”
Vinod also mentioned that the former Indian skipper was keen to continue with the India A and Under-19 teams as he’d been delivering wonderful results with them. With Dravid’s denial and Kumble’s fallout, the coach position eventually went to Ravi Shastri.
However, Rai believes this to be a win-win situation.
“Look, in terms of potential for coaching, Dravid, Shastri and Kumble are the best in the business,” Rai said. “We definitely talked to Rahul. He was engaged with the Under-19 team and he was involved with them. He had developed a road map on how to develop a team. He was bringing out fantastic results. He wanted to continue because he felt that there were some unfinished tasks with that team and he wanted to do it.”
Rahul Dravid was appointed as the chief of National Cricket Academy last year and the right-handed batsman was more than happy to accept the role. “Dravid is a head coach at NCA. He was very kind and very gracious in accepting that and committing himself to the NCA,” he added.
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