Dravid backs Ganguly on hosting England series, IPL 2021 at home

Indian cricket legend Rahul Dravid has always been the dependable, strong deputy to Sourav Ganguly during their playing days. Post their cricket career both are performing key roles in Indian cricket—Ganguly is the BCCI president and Dravid as the head of the National Cricket Academy. 

Dravid has now backed Ganguly's view that the England series should be held from January 2021 onwards and that the Indian Premier League 2021 edition needs to be played at home in India. 

"I am not the right person to answer this question honestly. The BCCI is looking into it. Sourav Ganguly commented recently that both the England tour and the IPL 2021 can happen in India. If he said that then I am confident that he said so taking everything into consideration. I will have to back him on this. That (In India) is where it should be held,"said Dravid while speaking during the launch of the book "New Innings" through a virtual seminar. 

The book is on the business and financial aspect of cricket and is written by Rajasthan Royals' lead owner Manoj Badale and Simon Hughes, former Middlesex player and cricket writer.  The book deals with the evolution of the IPL which, as Badale describes, is one of the two most successful sporting leagues in the world presently, the other being the NFL. Also present on the occasion was one of the chief architects of IPL—Andrew Wildblood of IMG. 

Dravid, who has been associated with the RR franchise in coaching capacity prior to taking over the India A and NCA director role, was asked about the key to Mumbai Indians' (this year's winner) consistent performances and success. The former India skipper put it down to two reasons. "As head of the NCA, from purely talent perspective, there are so many young talented Indian players who are not getting an opportunity (to showcase their talent).  We have seen the success of so many young talented players. There is just incredible talent out there waiting for an opportunity to perform on the big stage. What MI have done really well over the last 4-5 years is  that they maintained a strong core of very experienced quality players and mixed it well with young players. Jasprit Bumrah, Hardik Pandya, Ishan Kishan now. For a large part of the success, they owe to a good talent scouting structure," said Dravid.

Badale and Hughes  have tried to analyse using behind the scenes examples on the path taken by IPL towards establishing itself as a commercially viable, exciting and ever-growing sports league. They cited key reasons like clean contracts, media rights valuation, and sustainable and maintaining integrity as crucial to the IPL's success. They also look at how IPL has been successful in optimising viewership and what it needs to do in post corona times to sustain itself similarly. 

Dravid and his contemporaries played in the IPL for a few seasons. Dravid, however, feels that if the kind of data being used and made available to players and coaches had been available during his playing days, he would have been a better T20 player than he was. "The level of data being used is getting more and more nuanced, the game is a lot better due to this, it has made players sit up and take notice. There is a lot more willingness in players now to embrace data and learn from it," he said.

Citing the example of T. Natarajan, Tamil Nadu and Sun Risers Hyderbad medium pacer, Dravid said, "Over the last few years he has been improving; he has developed the yorker and has a strike rate which has got him into the Indian team. It will only help him to get better ."

Dravid backed the idea of cricket's T20 format aiming for a place in Summer Olympics. "It will be great for the game if T20 format can become an Olympic event. It comes with some challenges though. Quality of wickets is one thing; Olympics is hosted in different parts of the world where cricket may not be played.”

Badale, meanwhile, was asked about his opinion on IPL expanding next edition with a ninth and possibly a tenth team being added. He was in favour of the IPL being expanded saying that was in any case the original plan from the inception of the league. "I am very conscious that addition of the 9th team is a very hot topic this week. But it is outside my sphere of influence; we have always expected expansion,” he said.

Badale, however, was non-committal on the idea of a fresh auction for the next season, but added that if more teams were to be added then auction would have to take place.