India has had a forgetful time in the longest format of the game in the recent past, having lost Test series against New Zealand and South Africa in a span of a year.
Rahul Dravid: The Opinion
Former Indian head coach Rahul Dravid, under whom the team made it to the final of the World Test Championship twice and won the T20 World Cup in 2024, had his say on India’s performances or the lack of it in Test cricket in the last couple of years white attending the launch event of The Rise of the Hitman: The Rohit Sharma Story.
Rahul Dravid: Coach’s Corner
According to Dravid, the little to no time that a batter gets in between formats could be one of the reasons for the lacklustre outings in whites. In the words of Dravid, “One of the things I understood as a coach, especially for the guys that play all three formats, is that they keep moving from one format to the other.”
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Rahul Dravid: The Shift
Dravid added, “There were times when we would get to a Test match three to four days before the game. When we started practicing for the Test match and looked back at the last time some of these guys had actually hit a red ball, it might have been four or five months ago.”
Rahul Dravid: The Adaptability
“That’s become a real challenge-how do you find the time to develop those difficult skills? To play on turning tracks or seaming wickets for hours in a Test match is not easy. It requires skill. In my generation, when there were only two formats and no franchise cricket, there were many times where I would have a whole month of practicing for a Test series, playing with the red ball to develop my skills.”
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Rahul Dravid: The Reason
While mentioning a similar thing that the Indian Test captain Shubman Gill said, Dravid pointed out that the batter’s struggles can be associated with it.
Dravid concluded by saying, “Now, one of the things that has become tougher in red-ball cricket is that many of our guys who play all three formats-or play the sheer amount of cricket they are playing-sometimes don’t have the time to practice red-ball cricket as much.”
Rahul Dravid: The Support
“I think Shubman has alluded to it recently because he’s someone who has experienced that. Having played all three formats recently, he would have realised how difficult it is to actually gear up for the Test format.”