NEW DELHI – He knows a thing about the Indo-Pak cricketing rivalry and nowonder Rahul Dravid wants his wards to get an essence of what it means toface the arch-rivals when they square off today in the ICC U-19 World Cupsemi-finals.
“Our preparation and our planning doesn’t change at all. We don’t approachthis game any differently from how we would any other game. We stillapproach it to play good cricket, try and execute our skills and hopefullythe result will fall our way,” Dravid was quoted as saying in a videoposted by the ICC.
“But from an experience perspective, I am excited about it. The fact that,irrespective of the results, we get our Under-19 boys to understand whatit’s like to play an India- Pakistan game. At this level, it is all aboutexperiences,” the India U-19 coach added.
The India senior team has had a great record against Pakistan in ICCtournaments barring last year’s Champions Trophy final and Dravid knowsthat even the game at a junior level will be keenly followed.
“It’s great that we have been able to, in a way, set up an India-Pakistangame as well. There is a different buzz about it in the sense that we knowthat the game is followed probably a little bit more closely than some ofthe other games we have,” Dravid said.
“For the last couple of years, we haven’t played Pakistan at this level, soit’s really nice for our boys to have that experience of actually playingagainst Pakistan,” he added.