Rahul Dravid, the head coach of the Indian cricket team, feels Wriddhiman Saha has to make way for younger wicket-keeper-batsmen like Rishabh Pant. Dravid said he respected Saha's contribution to Indian cricket but sometimes hard decisions needed to be taken to look at the future prospects of the national team. (Photos and video: BCCI)
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NewsTranscript
00:00 Hi Rahul sir, are you hurt about the classified information leaked by Iman Sahal last night?
00:06 As he said that you have asked him to rethink about his cricketing career and you have told
00:11 him that he will not be considered for Team India.
00:14 What do you have to say about this?
00:16 Thanks for congratulating us on just winning a T20 series.
00:20 No, I am actually not hurt at all because I have a deep respect for Riddhiman Saha and his achievements and his contribution to Indian cricket.
00:35 My conversation with him actually came from that place, for my respect for him.
00:42 I just felt and I think he deserved honesty and he deserved clarity and I didn't want him to hear about it from the media.
00:55 And these are conversations that I constantly have with players and I am not hurt about it at all because I don't expect
01:06 players to always like the messages or to agree with everything that I have to say about them.
01:16 That's not how it works. When you have difficult conversations with people and sometimes you have to have them with players.
01:23 You don't expect them to always agree with you or like with you but that doesn't mean you brush it under the carpet
01:29 and don't have the conversations. I truly believe in having those conversations.
01:36 Before every playing XI is picked, even now either me or Rohit will speak to the guys who are not playing
01:41 and be open to answer questions as to why they are not playing and what are the reasons of a particular XI that we might play.
01:48 So I am not hurt by it. I think it's natural for players at times to get upset and to feel hurt.
01:57 But I just feel that because of the respect that I have for him, he deserved clarity and honesty.
02:04 And that's all I was just trying to convey. We have only 3 test matches this year.
02:12 And with Rishabh Pant having established himself as our number one choice wicket keeper,
02:18 the idea was to say that we were looking to groom a younger wicket keeper with only 3 test matches this year.
02:26 And that was it. This doesn't change my feelings or my respect for Hrithi and his contribution.
02:36 And like I said, the easiest thing for me is to not have these conversations or not speak to players about it.
02:45 That's not who I am and that's not what I am going to do. And I don't expect them to like it or like me
02:51 but at some stage I hope they will at least respect the fact that I was able to front up and have these conversations with them.
02:57 [BLANK_AUDIO]