Six captains in 7 months not something I envisaged: Rahul Dravid

Since taking over as the head coach of the Indian team, Rahul Dravis is yet to work with a consistent captain, with the rest and rotation policy as well as injury management resulted in the selectors appointing a whole total of six captains in a span of seven months. 

Since Dravid first took the team to Sri Lanka, he had Shikhar Dhawan as captain and then also had Kohli, Rohit Sharma, KL Rahul, Rishabh Pant, Hardik Pandya and now in all likelihood Jasprit Bumrah as a captain. Albeit there is nothing to read between the lines, the constant change has surely put Dravid in a catch-22 situation.

"It is what it is. When I took this job, even I couldn't have predicted that we will have so many captains in six or seven months but that can happen in times we are living in, COVID-19, unfortunate injuries to people, what happened to Rahul (groin injury) and now to Rohit in last 3 weeks," Dravid said emphatically.

"Sometimes, we have had to balance out the workload and just have to react to that, its not something I wanted when I started off, not something you envisage when you start off but when they arise, you react and deal with them.

"...in spite of number of captains we have had, we have played pretty good cricket, over last six to eight months. We have got our contingency plans in place and communications are clear and within the group everyone knows what we are going to do if some situation arises,' he said.

Pujara might open against England

Dravid didn't want to give it away but said that if the situation arises, No.3 can be asked to open which means that Cheteshwar Pujara might be seen opening the batting with Shubman Gill.

"Any such decision is taken in consultation with the player. As a player not every situation is as expected and it can happen at times that number three will have to open," he said.