Former Indian head coach Rahul Dravid feels Indian cricket is extremely powerful because talent comes all over the country. India has a strong club cricket structure and many young talented players are rising through the ranks.
Furthermore, the IPL is also giving opportunities to young players to rub shoulders with the best in the business and they are making the most of it.
Indian players are also grabbing their chances with both hands and the transition from Under-19 to top level is smooth.
“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 said it’s getting reflected in the standards of domestic cricket in India.
“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.”
The former Indian skipper believes it is important that access to top cricketing facilities is spread all over the country.
“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.”
