Rahul Dravid reveals why Indian cricket is extremely powerful

Legendary Indian cricketer, former Indian captain, and T20 World Cup-winning former Indian head coach Rahul Dravid recently opened up why India is extremely powerful in cricket. 

On Sunday (September 8), Rahul Dravid was present in the 50-year celebration of Mount Joy Cricket Club. 

Talking about the present Indian cricket status, Dravid credited the Indian cricket talent acquisition system. 

Dravid said, according to the PTI report, "If you look at Indian cricket today, Indian cricket is extremely strong, it's extremely powerful. One of the big reasons for that is that talent comes from everywhere, from all over the country."

Talking about this, Dravid further went through the example of Indian cricket’s previous generations.  

Dravid added, "If you go back to the time of, say, GR Vishwanath or even when I was starting out, most of the talent came from the big cities or a few states. Even if there were talented boys in smaller places, they had to come to the big cities to play cricket. But today I think you see in Indian cricket that boys are coming from everywhere."

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You just look at the standard of the Ranji Trophy: Ranji Trophy

Dravid also praised the present standard of the Ranji Trophy, India’s most important first-class cricket tournament. 

Dravid claimed, "You just look at the standard of the Ranji Trophy. In the old days when you played in the South Zone, other than playing Hyderabad or Tamil Nadu, I think it is fair to say, without being disrespectful, that a lot of other teams you could take it not for granted but you could certainly take it a little bit more lightly.

"I don't think there is any team in the South Zone today that you can walk in and say you will beat comfortably."

We need clubs to be strong: Rahul Dravid

Club cricket is an important part of Indian cricket. Indian domestic cricket teams generally get the cricketing talents from the club cricket. Dravid feels that strong club cricket is important for the development of Indian cricket. 

Dravid said, "We need clubs to be strong. We need cricket not to be concentrated in the hands of a few people. We need cricket to be egalitarian, we need it to be all over the place. You cannot have talent or facilities concentrated only in one or two places. To get the best out of talent, we need to ensure that young boys and girls are getting access to good infrastructure in every part."

Dravid also revisited his early cricket days, where he learnt the game more from the seniors’ talks.

The wall of Indian cricket said, "After the practice, HAL [Hindustan Aeronautics Limited] would give us two eggs and one small glass of milk. I would always stay back for that glass of milk and those eggs. Not because I wanted the milk and eggs. But because I wanted to sit and listen to the likes of BK Kumar or Nandan talking about cricket. And it used to be great fun to listen to them and learn so much from them."

Recently, Dravid successfully ended his journey as the head coach of the Indian men’s national cricket team. Under his coaching, India won their second T20 World Cup trophy after winning the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup 2024 trophy in the West Indies and United States. Last year, the Indian team finished as the runners-up in the ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup 2023 at home. 

Just a few days ago, Dravid officially returned to the Indian Premier League team Rajasthan Royals as a head coach. He was a key man for the Rajasthan Royals between 2011 and 2015. He led the team in 2012 and 2013, where the Dravid-led Rajasthan Royals finished as the runners-up in the Champions League T20 2013. 

Later, in the IPL 2014 and 2015, Dravid worked as a mentor of Rajasthan Royals.