Under-19 World Cup: We put ourselves in a difficult spot, says Rahul Dravid

It must have been heart-breaking to stumble at the final hurdle but coach Rahul Dravid, while commiserating the boys, reflects on the bigger picture and how defeat could spur them on to gaining senior stripes. Excerpts from his media interaction.

Spoken to the boys after the defeat?

Not yet. I am disappointed for them. It’s tough for a lot of these young kids but it’s hopefully a start of the journey for them. We’ve tasted a lot of success as a team, it’s only the first match we’ve lost and unfortunately for us it was the biggest game. But, there’s a learning in everything. I think in their long journeys as cricketers they are going to face a lot of ups and downs, see lot of success, hopefully face disappointments as well. This is a learning. If we can learn some lessons from it and if they can go on to become better cricketers and better people, that’s really the purpose of the tournament.

What have been the positives?

We have found ourselves in a lot of pressure situations over the last three months. Whether it’s been in India or in Sri Lanka, even in this World Cup, we’ve found ourselves in pressure situations and we’ve also come out of it, always found someone to fight. I think that’s been the characteristic for me about this team — they’ve got good team spirit. There are people who really want to compete, play and find themselves out of difficult situations. Unfortunately, we put ourselves in too difficult a situation today that we couldn’t pull ourselves back.

The road ahead?

There’s an incredible desire to improve, a desire to keep getting better and keep learning. That’s been the real positive. There’s a lot of passion for the game. I think it’s now really about being smart and figuring out what are the skills required. I think one of the biggest challenges for these boys now is that from here they move on to men’s cricket. I was telling some of them at one stage, you’ve competed with U-19 boys to get into this U-19 India team. You’ve competed with boys of your age who maybe weren’t as talented as you are. But when you suddenly walk out of here and you’re going to have to compete with the senior Indian boys – with a Rohit Sharma or a Virat Kohli or an Ajinkya Rahane. It’s a challenge and it will take time. Not all of them are going to compete tomorrow for Indian spots, it takes a few years. But that’s what lies ahead of them. You’ve got to keep improving, you’ve got to keep getting better. You have to challenge yourself, you have to push yourself and learn quickly because first class cricket is a tough environment and the last thing you want is for some of them to fall behind.