Former India all-rounder Irfan Pathan has termed the legendary Rahul Dravid’s association with the National Cricket Academy (NCA) in Bengaluru as the “best thing that has happened to Indian cricket”.

Dravid’s tenure as NCA head comes to an end in September 2021 and the former captain has already reapplied for the role. However, the BCCI extended the dates for the applications for the head coach role of NCA and Dravid is expected to win the race to retain the role.

Pathan, who has recently completed the level 2 coaching course at the NCA, hailed Dravid for his dedication towards the work and revealed the legendary batsman got involved with all the coaches pursuing the course at the NCA and shared valuable insights with them.

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He also said that India has been fortunate enough to get the services of Dravid, who has been instrumental in developing India’s current bench strength across formats.

Pathan told Crictracker, “The best thing that has happened to Indian cricket is Rahul (Dravid) getting associated with NCA. I have a huge amount of respect for him. Rahul Bhai has performed his role with utmost sincerity. Look, we know how Rahul Dravid got involved in U19 and India A.”

The former all-rounder continued, “But how he gets involved in each and every coach as well in terms of sharing his knowledge, listening from their perspective as well which for a guy of his caliber is a big task. But he does it with such ease.”

He signed off by saying, “That’s why you have a huge amount of respect. It doesn’t matter if you have played 1 or 100 first-class games, he gives you same amount of respect.”