BCCI  president Sourav Ganguly on Sunday revealed
that the Indian cricket team’s head coach Rahul Dravid was not willing to take
up the role as the team spends eight to nine months travelling in a year.

Former India batter Rahul Dravid was
appointed head coach of Team India after Ravi Shastri’s four-year stint came to end with
the T20 World Cup in the UAE in November. Dravid was an automatic choice for
the head coach role,
given the legendry cricketer’s stature in international cricket and his success with the U-19 setup.

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Dravid began his two-year term with the
three T20Is against New Zealand, where the home team beat the visitors 3-0.

“We had Rahul in mind for a long
period of time, both me and Jay, but he wasn’t agreeing because of the time
away from home [and] because doing a national team’s job is (about being) on
the road for about 8-9 months in a year and he has two young children,” former
India captain Ganguly said in an interview with cricket historian Boria
Majumdar.

“At one stage we gave up, he was
appointed as the head of NCA (National Cricket Academy, Bengaluru) to look
after it and take things forward. We had done all the interviews and
everything, his interview and application, and he was appointed at the NCA. But
even after he was appointed, we still kept insisting. Luckily, he agreed and I
don’t know what triggered the change in his mind but he agreed and I think this
is the best BCCI could have done in terms of coaching once Ravi (Shastri)
left,” Ganguly added.

Since his retirement from cricket,
Dravid has been associated with Indian cricket’s development programmes. In
2015, he started his journey as a mentor-cum-coach with the India U-19 and
India A sides. He coached them for around four years and a number of
players went on to make their international debut in that period. The junior team
also excelled and won the U-19 World Cup in 2018.

Also Read: Kohli-Shastri meltdown behind India’s T20 World Cup exit: Imzamam-ul-Haq

In 2019, Dravid became the chief of the
National Cricket Academy (NCA), which is located in Bengaluru.

In Dravid’s two-year term, India will play
at least 3 ICC events – T20 World Cup 2022, World Test Championship and 50-over
World Cup 2023. India have not won an ICC trophy since 2013 and ending the ICC
trophy drought will be one of the biggest challenges for Dravid.