'Without being disrespectful...': Rahul Dravid points out major changes in Indian cricket

Rahul Dravid, the former head coach of the Indian cricket team, has shared insights into the recent advancements in Indian cricket. Dravid, who recently led India to its second T20 World Cup title, highlighted that the sport has gained substantial strength in recent years. He attributed this progress to the diverse talent emerging from all corners of the nation.

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Rahul Dravid on how Indian cricket became extremely powerful

In his new role as the head coach of the Rajasthan Royals in the Indian Premier League ( IPL ), Rahul Dravid emphasized that today's domestic cricket scene is marked by players from across the entire country, a significant shift from the past when talent predominantly came from major cities.

"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,” Dravid was quoted as saying by PTI. 

“I think if you go back to the time of say GR Vishwanath or even when I was starting out my career, most of the talent came from the big cities or from few other states.

“Even if they 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,” he added.

“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 that you will comfortably beat,” he added.

“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.

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“You cannot have talent or you cannot have 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,” he noted.

(With PTI inputs)