India news – ‘Need to hear your players’ – Rahul Dravid on domestic calendar

“I’ve heard the same as well. I saw some of the comments Shardul [Thakur], I think, made and, in fact, some of the [new] boys who’ve come into the team [have said it] as well,” Dravid said after India’s win over England in the Dharamsala Test. “Some comment about how tough the domestic schedule is, especially in a country like India with the amount of travel involved. So yeah, we need to hear the players. That’s a very important thing in a lot of these things.

“You need to hear your players because they are the ones going through the grind and putting their bodies on the line; and if there are enough voices saying that, then yeah, I think there’s some need to look at it, and see how we can manage our schedules. It’s a long season already in India. It’s tough.”

The senior men’s domestic calendar began in June 2023, with the Duleep Trophy, the zonal first-class competition. The schedule has been relentless since the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy, the domestic T20 competition, started in October.

The Ranji Trophy that began in January has had players criss-crossing the country for matches with only three-day breaks. Ranji finalists Mumbai and Vidarbha, who play the final starting on Sunday, would have played as many as ten first-class games in just over ten weeks.

Dravid’s comments came at a time when the BCCI has done away with the annual Captains and Coaches Conclave it used to organise, where several important issues – like umpiring, scheduling, format, DRS, match fees and central contracts – have come up for discussion in the past. However, since the resumption of domestic cricket post the Covid-19 pandemic, this practice of involving players and coaches has been discontinued.