India tour of Sri Lanka 2021 - Rahul Dravid to coach Indian team led by Dhawan in Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka Cricket series 2021

Jay Shah, secretary of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), has announced that former India captain Rahul Dravid would coach the side in the limited-over series in Sri Lanka.

The BCCI secretary confirmed, "Rahul will be coaching the team for the Sri Lanka series." 

The Shikhar Dhawan-led side will play three One-Day Internationals (ODIs) and three Twenty-Twenty-Innings (T20Is) at the R Premadasa International Cricket Stadium in Colombo.

The squad met on Monday and is now under quarantine for seven days. The players will subsequently be subjected to a seven-day soft quarantine with indoor training.

For the past few years, Dravid has been mentoring the India under-19 and India A teams. It will be Dravid's second spell with Team India, having previously served as a batting consultant during the 2014 England tour.

The former skipper is the National Cricket Academy's head of cricket affairs in Bengaluru, currently.

This would be the first time that two distinct Indian teams would compete in two distinct corners of the world. Skipper Virat Kohli will head the Test team in a five-match series against England, while Shikhar Dhawan will command the Indian limited-overs team in Sri Lanka simultaneously.

The schedule for India and Sri Lanka's three-match ODI series and three-match T20I series was announced last week. The three one-day internationals will be played on July 13th, 16th, and 18th, while the T20I series will begin on July 21st, with the next two matches taking place on July 23rd and 25th.

Dravid, the only Indian cricketer to have scored more than 10,000 runs in Tests and ODIs after Sachin Tendulkar, has been in charge of India's U19 and A sides for the previous several years.