Former India cricketer and head coach Rahul Dravid has disagreed with current head coach Gautam Gambhir when it comes to superstar culture in the Indian team and stated that any sport needs its heroes. He also added that to become a legend or superstar in India in sports, players have to do a lot of things right.
Gambhir has stated on multiple occasions that team success should take precedence over individual accomplishments.
However, Dravid played during a time when Indian cricket had an abundance of superstars. He was a member of the renowned core that propelled Indian cricket to previously unheard-of heights, along with Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly, VVS Laxman, and Virender Sehwag.
Dravid believes that becoming a superstar in India requires immense hard work and sacrifice.
“Any sport needs its heroes, and I don’t think people become heroes without performances. You can’t capture the imagination of a nation if you don’t deliver on the field, especially in India, where you get a lot of praise for what you do but also a lot of brickbats. There’s a lot of scrutiny and constant focus on you. So, to become a legend or a superstar in India means you’ve done a lot of things right, and in the process, you’ve also helped your team win,” Dravid told Wisden on the Scoop podcast.
Dravid also talked about India’s Test performances under Gautam Gambhir’s guidance. Despite amazing returns in white-ball cricket with ICC Champions Trophy and T20 World Cup wins, India has fared poorly in tests.
India has been whitewashed at home twice in the last two years: 3-0 against New Zealand in 2024 and 2-0 against South Africa last year.
Dravid believes that red-ball cricket is still the most important format, but he also acknowledges that with so much cricket being played, players may find it tough to switch formats.
“The passion to do well in red-ball cricket is definitely there. We’ve had a couple of series where we haven’t performed as well as an Indian team, and that can happen. We are also missing a few key players, with some of the big names having recently retired—Rohit, Virat, and Ashwin—and it is not easy to replace players like that. But Indian cricket remains very strong. I still believe the Indian team will be competitive in every format it plays. It may take a little time, but hopefully this season we will be able to turn things around,” added Dravid.
“Red-ball cricket is still very important. There are still players who want to play red-ball cricket. Among players, there is a strong sense that it is probably the toughest format of the game and something that brings a lot of personal satisfaction when you succeed in it. But there is also a lot of white-ball cricket being played, and we have to be realistic about that. Many of these players today are having to juggle multiple formats, and it is not always easy because they may not get as much time to prepare for red-ball cricket as my generation did. We effectively had fewer formats, and when I think about the preparation that went into some of the Test series I played, I feel the current players, not because they don’t want to, but because of the volume of cricket, are sometimes unable to find that same balance,” he added.
