Indian Test skipper Virat Kohli has decided to prepare for the upcoming series against Sri Lanka, which will start from 12 August at Galle. India A coach and legendary batsman Rahul Dravid heaped praise on Kohli for his decision to play for India A in the ongoing unofficial Test series against Australia A.
"It is great. It is fantastic that Virat wants to play. In fact, he spoke to me almost three weeks ago wanting to play at least one match in the series. It is nice that he is very keen to play and is preparing himself for the Sri Lanka tour. He wants match practice and we are happy," Dravid told reporters at a press conference on Saturday.
Kohli, who is the current Indian Test captain, will share the dressing room with youngsters during the match against Australia A. Dravid felt that this will be a good opportunity for young players to get noticed by the skipper.
"It is always nice to have the Indian captain in team and I think it will be a great boost for the young guys who want to impress the captain," Dravid added.
The first unofficial four-day Test match against Australia A, which ended in a draw, has left India A coach disappointed. Dravid blamed it on the surface, which turned out to be slow.
"If we are to force a result, we need to get them at 40 for three early on. If they were to get the result, they need to get 170 or so losing one or two wickets. It was a slow wicket and was not easy to score runs, especially off the faster bowlers. It spun a little bit later on but it is a classic five-day wicket. Unfortunately, for us to force a result was not really easy," Dravid said.
"Good all-round positives. Pragyan Ojha coming back from issues that he had and Amit Mishra getting in to the Indian side. They are still bowling well. I guess it is one of the positives from their perspective. The conditions were not ideal for the seamers. I thought the two seamers and Vijay Shankar bowled with good disciplines and it was nice," he added.
