“It is never going to be easy to replace people of Rohit and Virat’s calibre,” Rathour told PTI. “The recently-concluded [T20I] series against Zimbabwe gave us some glimpse into how the T20 team will look like in future. But we still have a few years in Test and ODI cricket to get to that point.”
“I won’t be too concerned about it [the transition],” Rathour said. “We have a lot of depth in Indian cricket. There are lots of very talented and skilful players who are coming through the system. The only thing we need to make sure is the transition is done in a controlled manner. It needs to be gradual.”
Rathour feels that with so many young players coming through, India have the men they need to form the core of the side, across formats, for the next decade.
“I am hoping that by then, players like Shubman Gill, Rishabh Pant, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Dhruv Jurel, to name a few, would establish themselves and will make the transition smooth,” he said. “In ODIs also, we have experienced players like Shreyas Iyer, KL Rahul and Hardik Pandya to take over.
“There are many exciting players coming through but these two [Gill and Jaiswal] are equipped to play all three formats for a long time. They are going to be the backbone of Indian batting in years to come.”
Rathour: Rinku Singh ‘can develop into a Test cricketer’
“When I see him bat in nets, I can’t find any technical reasons why Rinku cannot be a successful Test batter,” Rathour said. “I understand he has made his name as a terrific finisher in T20 cricket but if you look at his first-class record, he is averaging in high 50s.
“He is also blessed with a very calm temperament. So all these factors indicate that if given an opportunity, he can develop into a Test cricketer.”
Dravid ‘gives you lots of space to work’
Rathour formed a strong partnership with Dravid in the India backroom. Their relationship, in fact, goes back to the mid-1990s, when they made their international debuts around the same time – ditto for Paras Mhambrey, the bowling coach in the Dravid-led set-up.
“Rahul is the best coach that I have worked with, who gives you lots of space to work, is open to suggestions and will provide you an honest feedback,” Rathour said. “One of the first discussions we had was about changing the batting template in T20 cricket. We agreed that we needed to bring in more intent and aggression in our batting approach.”
Rathour said a case in point was that of Axar Patel, who fixed their problem of a decent batting option at No. 8. “That made a massive difference and gave the batters in top order lot more freedom to bat.”
