Rahul Dravid stresses on importance of bouncy pitches for India U19 cricketers

In total eight matches were played in the U-19 50-over tournament which involved India U19 A, India U-19 B, South Africa U-19 and Afghanistan U-19 but the 200-run mark was crossed only five times in the tournament. The bowlers of all the teams had a fantastic outing in Thiruvananthapuram where India U-19 B defeated India U-19 A by 72 runs in the final to win the series. After the tournament, U-19 coach and former India skipper Dravid clarified that he wanted to test the batsmen on challenging pitches and give them a right exposure.

"The quality of the wickets was really good at both the venues (Sports Hub and St Xavier's). They were challenging for the batsmen. The bounce was exceptional. Our whole idea was to expose the boys to bouncy wickets. So that they play not just on flat wickets and then we can see who can stand up and perform when the conditions are challenging," Dravid told TOI.

The India U-19 team had also won a youth Test series 2-0 against the South African colts just before the start of the one-day matches. Dravid has expressed his satisfaction over trying out different players and give them maximum opportunities during all the matches across both the formats. The U-19 World Cup will be played next year in South Africa and Dravid explained that the idea was not just to prepare them for the World Cup but also make them ready for domestic cricket tournaments as well.

"We saw almost 45 (46) guys over the course of the four-day and one-day games. It was good to see what talents are out there. We are not really looking to give individual attention at this stage. This was a selection-sort of a tournament before we narrow in on the top 30-40 players. There are going to be zonal camps, zonal tournaments, the Asia Cup, then domestic cricket after this. This is the stage in the cycle when we are looking to identify players. It's going to be an exciting bunch to work with over the next six or seven months leading to the U-19 World Cup," said Dravid.

"We wanted to expose more and more on players to this level. I'm not very keen on zeroing down on fewer numbers very quickly. We want more people to feel they are part of the system and get the benefit of the system; working with the coaches, the physios and I think that builds a much broader pool. Even if they don't play the U-19 World Cup, they can go back as better players and get into the first-class teams for their states.”

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