Dravid: Backroom changes a mistake mid-tour

Former India captain Rahul Dravid feels it was a mistake to make so many changes to India's backroom staff in the middle of the tour to England, saying they should have waited until they were back home.

Former India captain Rahul Dravid feels it was a mistake to make so many changes to India's backroom staff in the middle of the tour to England, saying they should have waited until they were back home.

The BCCI installed Ravi Shastri as team director this week, following the side's series defeat in the Tests, essentially installing him as coach Duncan Fletcher's watchdog. They also made changes to the assistant coaching structures.

Dravid said on <i>Cricinfo</i>: "You don't have problems if people want to make changes, it's part of professional sport. [But] there's still not a lot of clarity on whether this is a long term appointment or the changes we have seen are for this series, so there's a bit of confusion around that.

"Sometimes from a players' perspective that can be quite hard. I hope that's something Ravi [Shastri] will handle quite well. All these players also build relationships with support staff and as players you do recognise that at some level you are actually responsible for your own success and failure."

Dravid said he hoped their wouldn't be tension between Shastri and Fletcher during the ODI series: "Knowing the kind of people that they are, they would not want to ensure that the players see that there is an issue between them.

"Like Ravi says, Duncan will still be the head coach, he will still be running the team meetings and be involved in the selection of the playing eleven. So I hope there is no issue."

After the Test defeats, bowling coach Joe Dawes and fielding coach Trevor Penney were sent packing, and Dravid felt badly for them, saying the coaches often were helpless as they couldn't do the job for the players on the field.

He said: "The support staff can't bat, bowl or catch for you. That's why sometimes being in the support staff or being a coach is a no-win situation because you might be giving the guys the best possible advise and the best possible training facilities but things don't work in the field.

"You can still drop catches, you can still have technical issues with the bat. Coaches can't solve everything and as good players, deep down, you know that."

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