Rahul Dravid on Superstar Culture in Indian Cricket

Former India coach Rahul Dravid has said he is not fully aligned with Gautam Gambhir’s idea of ending superstar culture in Indian cricket, stating that every sport needs its heroes and individual achievements also contribute to team success. Gambhir has often spoken about reducing the focus on individuals and giving more importance to collective success. Responding to the discussion, Dravid said players become superstars only after performing consistently and helping their teams win. “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, who played alongside players such as Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly, VVS Laxman and Virender Sehwag, said Indian cricket reached new levels during that period with several star players in the side. Speaking about India’s recent struggles in Test cricket under Gambhir, Dravid said replacing retired players such as Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli and Ravichandran Ashwin would not be easy, but backed the team to recover. “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,” said Dravid. Dravid also said the current cricket calendar makes it difficult for players to balance formats, especially with the amount of white-ball cricket being played. “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.”