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Ahead of the ODI series against Australia, India's prominent stars Virat Kohli and captain Rohit Sharma have been rested for the first two matches. India head coach Rahul Dravid revealed the reason behind not picking the two veteran players despite the ODI World Cup 2023 in India is just two weeks away.
India are set to play the first ODI of the three-match series at the Punjab Cricket Association IS Bindra Stadium in Mohali on September 22, before the series moves to Indore two days later, and finally culminates in Rajkot on September 27. Then, the ICC Cricket World Cup campaign for Team India officially begins with the warm-up match against England in Guwahati on September 30.
The 50-year-old Dravid reasoned that the team management wants to get them to the first game of the ODI World Cup 2023 physically and mentally in the space they want to be in.
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Rahul Dravid was quoted as saying to the media about the thought process behind giving the rest to two of their senior players before the ODI World Cup 2023 begins, as per ESPNcricinfo, “With people like Virat and Rohit specifically, from our perspective, it's really important that we get them to the first game of the World Cup physically and mentally in the space they want to be in.”
“At this level, the amount of cricket that they've played, they know how they need to prepare themselves. A lot of these decisions are made in discussion with them in an effort to try and get… all our players, obviously not only the two of them but certainly the senior and the more experienced guys kind of have their routines and know what they need to do to get into the first game in the right frame of mind,” he added.
With a short turnover in fixtures before the group stages of the ODI World Cup 2023 begins for India against Australia in Chennai on October 8, the head coach spoke about the discussion with Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma. He said, “A lot of these decisions we discuss with them on how best they would like to prepare in the lead up to big events like the World Cup.
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“Based on those discussions, we come up with some mutual decisions on deciding probably these two games were good games to take off, just to refresh mentally more than anything else, and then come back from (the third ODI in) Rajkot, and then it's going to be a tough couple of months ahead of us,” remarked Rahul Dravid.
The duo of Kohli and Sharma is expected to return to the Indian squad for their third and final ODI against Australia, however, the team is yet to give confirmation on their involvement.
