Aim to play for India is gold medal, playing IPL is silver: Rahul Dravid
Having now shifted his focus to coaching or team mentoring, Delhi Daredevils mentor Rahul Dravid speaks at length about reports of being approached to coach Team India and the challenges of being associated with a struggling Delhi franchise. Chander Shekhar Luthra is all ears. Excerpts:
There have been reports that BCCI-appointed Cricket Advisory Committee (CAC) approached you for the Indian team's coaching job...
Any decision that I make at this stage of my life would depend on whether I have the bandwidth to do all of these things. Anything that comes back to you needs to be weighed with a lot of consideration, not only in terms of whether you feel you want to do it but also the time that is involved in doing it. You have to think about a lot of these things like what does it entail and what does it require? Can you devote time and energy? Anything that you would want to do, you want to ensure you are 100 per cent focussed on it. It's not important whether results come or not but can you give that level of commitment. Just like in cricket, I mean if I wanted to be really a good batsman, I recognised that time, sacrifices and devotion whatever was required to get it done and what sacrifices I had to make for it. It takes time. You can never really say that now you are ready and now you are not.
IPL has helped in unearthing emerging young Indian talent, but it has also put the foreign players in the advantageous position as they know the Indian conditions well. In World T20, many foreign players excelled because of their knowledge of the sub-continent conditions...
There's no doubt that overseas players have gained much knowledge as they spend so much time in India. They are not as intimidated by India as was the case before. They know the conditions a lot better. But, we also need to look at the flip side of the coin. The Indian players are getting a chance to share the dressing room with the legends of the game, to play alongside them and interact with them. They are getting the opportunity to play in front of 50,000 people and experience that pressure which the Indian players won't get in domestic matches. I am not concerned about foreign players coming here and experiencing the conditions as there are no secrets in international cricket nowadays. There's more to be gained by having a tournament like IPL.
What are the challenges for young Indian cricketers as they look more interested in getting the IPL contract rather than playing for India?
The challenge is there could be a tendency in these players to focus predominantly in T20s, ODIs and IPL. I am not saying that it's necessarily happening all the time, but they need to watch out and value the importance of Ranji Trophy and domestic cricket. There might be some cricketers who only want to play in the IPL, but we can't use it as a template. Each case will be different. If someone is not getting the opportunity to play for India, then why shouldn't he try for the IPL? Similarly, there would be some players who focus on becoming a good Ranji player and try to get into the Indian Test team. The good thing about the IPL is that the skill level of Indian players has been raised over the years. You look at the progress of Shreyas Iyer or Hardik Pandya.
Where do you place IPL?
It's slightly below the international cricket, but it's definitely above the domestic T20 competition. It's the midway between the two. We have to realise that there are now three formats of the game and the player has to focus on each format.
As a coach of the India Under-19 team and team mentor of the Delhi Daredevils, what's your advice to the young Indian cricketers?
Look at the quality of Joe Root, Virat Kohli and Kane Williamson. They are classic players yet they have excelled in all three formats. This is my message to young kids: Why sell yourself short? There are enough bowlers and batsmen to show you that you can play all the three formats. You don't have to say that I'll only become the T20 player. That's a dangerous trend because there's only two months of T20 cricket. I don't think young players need to sell them short. Their ultimate aim should be to play for India. That's the gold medal for me; silver is playing the IPL.
How's DD shaping up?
Well, there's no point looking back. Whatever (poor) results had been logged, it's happened. It's important to come up with fresh minds, try to put things in place. What the nature of T20 cricket has taught me over the last eight years is that you can do a lot of things right, but sometimes things can still not go your way. It's actually important to focus on those areas and refine your work.