Ind vs SL: Shikhar Dhawan-led Indian team begins training in Colombo
Jul 02, 2021
Colombo [Sri Lanka], July 2 : Team India's white-ball squad trained in Colombo for the first time on Friday as the Shikhar Dhawan-led squad gears up for the upcoming limited-overs series in the Island Nation.
Sri Lanka and India will square off in three ODIs and three T20Is, beginning July 13. While Bhuvneshwar has been named vice-captain, Dhawan will lead the team which will be coached by former India skipper Rahul Dravid.
The team completed the mandatory quarantine on Thursday and took the field on Friday for the first training session under coach Dravid. In the pictures shared by the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), players can be seen sweating it out.
"Snapshots from #TeamIndia's first training session in Sri Lanka," BCCI tweeted.
The likes of Sanju Samson, Ishan Kishan, and Suryakumar Yadav are in the white-ball squad and many more youngsters are eyeing a debut for India in the Sri Lanka series. In the pre-departure press conference, Dravid said he hopes the white-ball squad is able to give good performances so that they are able to knock the doors of selectors for a call-up for the T20 World Cup which is set to be played later this year in UAE.
"So like you said, rightly there are a lot of people in the squad who are pushing for places or looking to cement their places in the sort of T20 World Cup. But the key goal for everyone in the squad and in the team is to try and win the series, we have had discussions around it.
"That is the primary objective. We are going out there to win the series, hopefully, people get the opportunity to put in good performances in the course of us trying to win the series, and knock the doors of the selectors," said Dravid while replying to an ANI query.
Speaking about leading the side for the first time, Dhawan said: "So it is a great honour for me to be the captain of the Indian team. I am looking forward to it, I have played under Rahul Dravid's coaching once, I was the captain of India A at that time, we had played against Bangladesh. I feel we guys think together, we are looking forward to the series, we will be looking to build positive things and there should be a very happy environment in which boys can express themselves and we get the best out of them," he added.
