In an interview with The Scoop, former India captain and head coach Rahul Dravid spoke about cricket’s attempts to strike a balance between Tests and white-ball formats.
“There are people who still do want to play red-ball cricket”
Dravid spoke at length to The Scoop about the importance of red-ball cricket: “I think red-ball cricket is still important. There are people who still do want to play red-ball cricket. At least amongst the players you know, a lot of the feeling you do get is players do recognise that red-ball cricket is probably the toughest form of the game, and something that gives them a lot of personal satisfaction to be able to succeed in and do well.”
Is it a challenge for today’s cricketers to switch formats? “There’s a lot of white-ball cricket being played, and I think we have to be realistic about it as well,” said Dravid. “A lot of these players playing today are having to kind of juggle these formats, and it’s not always easy because [they are] not getting as much time to practice red-ball cricket as probably my generation of players did.
“We probably had two formats of the game, and when I think about the preparation into some of the Test series that I had, I feel that sometimes the current players probably (not that they don’t want to, but just the very nature of the sport and the amount of matches that are being played) they’re not being able to find that that sort of balance. But I think the passion to do well in red-ball cricket is there.”
“It’s always going to be very tough to have a dedicated Test window”
Does Test cricket need a separate window? “It’s always been a very difficult one, to have a dedicated window, because the nature of the sport is such that it’s always a summer sport except for India and a lot of these places,” explained Dravid. “It’s very seasonal, and you can only play it in those seasons for four or five months of the year. Even in India, the season is slightly longer because of the IPL, and we play in the summer, but you can’t play cricket in India and the monsoons in most parts of the country.
“So I think it’s always a big challenge to be able to find those and with different parts of the world having different windows in which they can play the game. It’s always going to be very tough to have a dedicated Test window, but trying to ensure that most Test teams play a certain number of test matches a year.
“I think in some ways, the World Test Championship has really helped, because at least every team has to play six series during the course of the two years of World Test Championship cycle. I think that, in some ways, gives it some stability and some continuity, so to speak. But I think the challenge between trying to find that balance for the three sports [formats] is always going to be something that cricket is going to have to deal with.”
The extended interview can be watched on The Scoop Extended on the Wisden Cricket YouTube channel.
