Want to firm up T20 World Cup squad as quickly as possible: Rahul Dravid

India head coach Rahul Dravid says Dinesh Karthik has made a solid case to be included in the T20 World Cup squad but wants to identify the core group of players for the mega event by the end of the white-ball series against England.

Karthik played a couple of good knocks in the T20I series against South Africa at home. The teams had to share the series after the decider in Bangalore was washed out.

"He was picked for what he has been doing exceptionally well for the last two or three years (in IPL) and kind of indicated in the sense that it almost came together in the game at Rajkot," Dravid spoke about the Tamil Nadu dasher's 27-ball-55 that was crucial in India restoring parity in the series.

For Dravid, Karthik and Hardik Pandya are the two enforcers in the death overs.

"We needed that big performance in the last five overs to make a par score and he and Hardik batted beautifully. Both of them are enforcers for us at the end," Dravid spelt out what role the team management has in mind for Karthik.

The coach had no hesitation in admitting that Karthik has made a good case for himself going into the T20 World Cup. "I was telling guys that you have to start banging the door down and not just knocking the door down and innings like that (Rajkot fifty) means he is knocking very hard."

India and England play six white-ball matches between July 7 and 17, after the one-ff Test at Edgbaston. Dravid identifies that period to get an idea of who makes the T20 World Cup squad and who doesn't. 

"As you come closer and closer to the event, you want to firm up your final squad or if not. You want to have some contingencies in the kind of world we live in today. Obviously, you want to take only 15 to the World Cup but (need to identify) top 18 to 20 players," he replied to a query on where he stands on his core team.

"Obviously, there could be odd changes due to injury and things that are beyond your control but we are going to start looking to firm up that squad as quickly as possible.

"Whether that will happen in the next series (Ireland) or series after that (England) is hard to tell but we are certainly looking to do that as quickly as possible," he revealed.

Dravid backs Gaikwad, Iyer

If there were two people who have ideally blown away their chances to be a part of World T20 core squad, they are Ruturaj Gaikwad (96 runs in 5 games) and Shreyas Iyer (94 runs in 5 games). Gaikwad is looking completely out of place in international cricket and Iyer's struggle against quality pace bowling is now well-documented.

The head coach however chose to be a bit more empathetic towards the duo even though one will not play against Ireland (Iyer is in the Test team) and the other is unlikely to get any more starts.

"We are not going to make knee-jerk reactions on people just like that. I don't like judging people after one series or one game," Dravid said.

"Shreyas on a couple of tricky wickets showed a lot of intent, played really positively for us. Ruturaj in one innings showed what he has got. We are not disappointed with anyone," Dravid once again showed the dogged defence of his playing days.

As a group, we wanted to play a certain brand of cricket and we were trying to play a slightly more positive and attacking brand of cricket right from beginning and we knew when you try and do that, it is not always going to come off. But we are certainly clear about the kind of cricket we want to play," he said.

Analysing Australian conditions

Dravid is known to rely a lot on data analysis and he would love to gather information on playing conditions and oppositions before the tournament. "Lot of our boys have played in Australia and we certainly will be having conversations with them on what kind of tactics and strategies work," he said.

"In terms of data and analysis, we will look at all games being played in Australia and obviously they are international games, there is Big Bash and I mean we will do all our research and background things that happen in terms of analysis.

"And of course, we don't have a series against them (Australia in Australia), so we can't change that. I guess we have to make do with two weeks we have in the lead up to the World Cup and make the best use of it."

One-off Test will be a different proposition

Dravid loved playing Test cricket in England and loves coaching a Test team. He reckons that the one-off 'fifth Test' against the hosts will be a different proposition from last year when the team under Virat Kohli led 2-1 before Covid-19 cases in the India camp forced the cancellation of the final game.

"England are playing well at the moment and it is going to be a bit different from last year when England were probably a little bit on backfoot. They have played some good games and we have a pretty good side as well," Dravid said, referring to Ben Stokes' side's series win against New Zealand.

"Loved playing Test cricket, love watching it and love coaching in Test cricket and so you know, looking forward to it," he concluded.

(With inputs from PTI)