Heaping praises on explosive southpaw Rinku Singh’s finishing skills, India head coach Rahul Dravid said that performances in the series against Afghanistan and the IPL will determine the players’ selection in the T20I World Cup squad.

“Rinku has started very well in international cricket. He is pretty adept in the role of a finisher, something that we want from him. The series against Afghanistan as well as the IPL are platforms for him to develop,” Dravid said on the eve of the first T20I against Afghanistan in Mohali.

“When it comes to the selection for the World Cup, that’ll be done when it’s time. But obviously if a player gives good performances, he catches the eye of the selectors,” he added.

Granted that the IPL will be played just before the T20 World Cup, the three-match contest against Afghanistan will be India’s last international assignment before the marquee tournament in June.

Throwing light on India’s preparations heading into another World Cup, Dravid said, “There’s been quite a few ICC events in the last few years and a lot of them were back to back. So there’s hasn’t been a lot of time in between these events so at various stages in the last couple of years that I have been here, we had to prioritise certain formats and certain tournaments simply because of the amount of cricket being played.”

“ It’s impossible for all the players to be playing all the time so we have always had to prioritise on what is important, especially for the guys playing all three formats. Even in this series, people like Bumrah, Jadeja and Siraj have missed out keeping in mind that there are 5 Test matches against England next. So you are always playing that juggling act a little bit over the last 2 years,” he said.

“Obviously for the large part of last year and after the last T20 World Cup, we had to prioritize the One Day World Cup. There’s not a lot of games after the ODI World Cup in terms of the T20 format. So this T20 World Cup is slightly different from that perspective in the sense that there’s hasn’t been a lot of time to prepare for it so we had to rely on the cricket we have and also a little bit on the IPL. The boys will play T20 cricket, here as well as the IPL. We might not get many opportunities to play together so we just have to work around that and adapt,” he added.

Dravid also ruled out any disciplinary issues in the context of Shreyas Iyer missing the series, while also clearing the air on the issue of Ishan Kishan’s absence from the squad for the series.

“Ishan Kishan was not available for selection. He requested for a break in South Africa which we agreed to. He has not made himself available for selection and when he does, I am sure he’ll play domestic cricket and make himself available for selection.”

“In Shreyas Iyer’s case, there is absolutely no disciplinary reason for his non-inclusion. It’s just that he missed out because there were a lot of batsmen in the team. He played the T20s in South Africa as well. It’s unfortunate. He’s a fine player but it’s not easy to fir everyone in the squad and the playing eleven. There were no disciplinary issues at all,” Dravid said.