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Former India coach explains why Indian cricket at present is considered to be powerful even in a state of inevitable transition.
Rahul Dravid, the T20 World Cup-winning former India coach explains why Indian cricket is the powerful giant towering over world cricket at present is due to the formidable and deep pool of talented players across the country.
Dravid, who led India to victory in the T20 World Cup in June, stated that breaking the long-standing pattern of city players dominating the path to the national squad is largely due to a robust club cricket culture.
“If you look at Indian cricket today, Indian cricket is extremely strong, it’s extremely powerful,” Dravid said during the 50-year celebration of Mount Joy Cricket Club. “One of the big reasons for that is that talent comes from everywhere, from all over the country.”
“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.”
Dravid believes that this reflects in the standards as well as the quality of domestic cricket in general in the past few years.
“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.”