Rahul Dravid, a cricket great and former India coach, has lauded the development of Indian cricket into a very strong force on the international scene. Speaking at the Mount Joy Cricket Club’s 50th anniversary celebration, Dravid credited this strength to the talent pool’s current nationwide reach, which even includes the most isolated regions.
In the past, big cities and a few states have produced the majority of Indian cricket talent. Dravid senses a noticeable change in this pattern, though, since talented players are increasingly arriving from all over the country.
In addition to raising the bar for domestic cricket, this move has helped India’s recent international triumphs, like as their June T20 World Cup victory coached by David Dravid.
“If you look at Indian cricket today, you will see that it is incredibly robust and strong. The fact that talent comes from all around the nation is one of the main causes of this. To play cricket, lads from smaller towns had to travel to the larger cities, even if they were gifted athletes. However, I believe that lads are now coming from all around in Indian cricket,” Dravid stated, citing a quote.
Clubs must be powerful: Rahul Dravid
The Ranji Trophy and other domestic competitions are very competitive, a clear result of this talent dispersal. According to the former, no team can be taken for granted these days; instead, they can be treated a little lightly.
“You only need to consider the Ranji Trophy’s standard. Without being disrespectful, I believe it is fair to say that, in the past, when you played in the South Zone, you could, among other teams, take things a little less seriously, even though you weren’t facing Hyderabad or Tamil Nadu.
Strong club cricket infrastructure should be preserved, the former captain of India emphasised, especially in areas like Karnataka. He promoted an equitable strategy for the growth of cricket.
In addition, Dravid stressed the need of having infrastructure that is easily accessible, saying that resources and expertise shouldn’t be restricted to specific areas.
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“Strong clubs are essential. We need to ensure that cricket is not controlled by a small number of individuals. We require cricket to be universally accessible and equal. Talent and resources cannot be confined to one or two locations. “We need to make sure that young boys and girls have access to quality infrastructure in every area if we want to maximise talent,” he said.