Dravid backs Pujara to come good in ODIs

Mumbai: Rahul Dravid today backed Cheteshwar Pujara, who replaced him at number three in Indian Test team batting order, to come good in the ODIs like he did in his career.

"Speaking from my own personal experience and as someone who was being seen (basically) as a Test player, Pujara can certainly make a mark in one-day cricket. I was able to develop and build my game for one-day cricket, (which) I played successfully for quite a long time. I have no doubt that Pujara has the ability and the skill to do that," said Dravid at a promotional event for `Gillette` today. Dravid was referring to his early struggles with the limited overs format and then his evolution as a batsman-keeper that helped him cement a place in the ODI team. "I don`t see any reason he (Pujara) cannot succeed in one-day cricket with the way he bats in Test matches, the way he rotates the strike, the kind of shots he plays all round the wicket and he scores runs at a pretty decent rate in Test cricket. I don`t have a doubt he will do well in one day cricket," said Dravid. The 41-year-old retired batting stalwart said though Pujara has not been able to force his way into the playing eleven after being inducted into the Asia Cup squad, he will get his chances in the near future. "I am happy to see he has got into the Indian one-day squad. At the moment and obviously with the number of young players in Indian team he is not able to get enough playing time. Hopefully, that will come. There are tours of England and Australia coming up and someone like him will get a little more playing time to prove himself and do well. "Obviously, he is fighting in a crammed middle order at the moment. That is the challenge for him. Just hopefully he can get opportunities as and when possible and make the best of them. And if he does then I feel he has a role for India," said Dravid. "Sometimes the role of the coach is overrated. The responsibility should always lie with the senior group of players and the captain. The team is defined by what the senior players bring to the party. "The coach can help to play in the right environment, right condition. You can't judge coaches always necessarily on results. Someone who coaches Bangladesh is not necessarily going to win a lot of games," said Dravid. "How you prepare the players, what you do with your players is what you should be judged over. There is very subjective judgement, at times. Coaches sometimes can't really influence the course of the game, but are judged on the course of the game. The coach's job finishes after the game starts." "It's a professional world. It does not matter where the coach is from. The best man should get the job irrespective of his nationality. We have had Indian coaches at various roles involved with the cricket team in the past. Over a long period we had people like Robin (Singh) and (Venkatesh) Prasad who were involved with the team as well. "Over the last ten years with so many coaching programmes (put in place by BCCI), the pool of Indian coaches is constantly building all the time," the former cricketer said. Dravid said that India need to ensure that once they get into a winning position they complete the task. "I think Dhoni is as good a batsman as anyone is. Jadeja is improving. Ashwin is improving. I think that opportunity lies. We have to be brave to be able to win Test matches. Because we are getting into positions and we are not able to get those 20 wickets to be able to win Test matches. "And that is a little bit of area we need to plug. We might get bowled out cheaply, sometimes because we have a batsman less, but we will also get a team out when we are in a position to do so with that extra bowlers. "I won't blame only Dhoni. He has got a young batting line up. Traditionally, after Kapil Dev, we have not had the confidence of being able to say that we have a genuine all-rounder. We have not had that. "All rounders of Kapil's quality come generationally. It's very, very hard to find that kind of quality. We have never had it traditionally. Fast bowling all-rounder, we have had one in our whole history. They don't come very easy unfortunately."