Suresh Raina is excited to renew his fruitful relationship with Rahul Dravid. Raina is in the city as part of the India ‘A’ cricket team which soon faces Bangladesh ‘A’, with Dravid as coach.
“Dravid was good with youngsters like me, Robin Uthappa, Irfan Pathan and others when he was the captain. He gave all of us a lot of confidence, and I’m definitely happy to work with him again,” Raina said, after a training session here on Monday.
The Bangladesh ‘A’ team tour kicks off with the first of three 50-over matches, which will be held at the Chinnaswamy Stadium here on September 16. Raina, who was part of the India senior team which lost to Bangladesh 2-1 in the away ODI series in June this year, is rightly wary of the opposition.
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“I can’t really say that this ‘A’ series will give us good practice matches because we (senior team) have lost a series to Bangladesh recently. India ‘A’ have done well in the last couple of series, and we need to continue the good work,” he said.
The 28-year-old, who has played 218 ODIs and 18 Tests, is happy to ply his trade in an ‘A’ series. “It’s all in the mind. I’m happy to play a few good practice games with players like Kedar Jadhav, Manish Pandey, Kuldip Yadav and Unmukt Chand. I can learn something from them,” he said.
A busy few weeks await Raina, who has also been named in the 30-man India senior probables list for the upcoming series against South Africa. Asked about the visiting side’s good recent record against the Indians, Raina replied: “Let us focus on the positives of what we have achieved just now. We won the Test series in Sri Lanka.”
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