'Indian cricket is extremely powerful', says Rahul Dravid

Rahul Dravid believes that Indian cricket has evolved into an "extremely powerful" force, largely due to the growing talent pool that now extends to even the most remote areas of the country. 

Speaking at the 50-year celebration of Mount Joy Cricket Club, the former Indian cricket coach credited the strong club cricket culture for breaking the old tradition of players mostly coming from big cities.

"If you look at Indian cricket today, Indian cricket is extremely strong, it's extremely powerful," Dravid said. 

"One of the big reasons for that is that talent comes from everywhere, from all over the country, he further added.

He pointed out that in earlier times, most of the players came from major cities or a few states.

"Even if there were talented boys in smaller places, they had to come to the big cities to play cricket. But today, I think you see in Indian cricket that boys are coming from everywhere," he noted.

Dravid, who coached India to the T20 World Cup victory in June, emphasized that this growth in talent is reflected in the improvement of domestic cricket, particularly in the Ranji Trophy.

"You just look at the standard of the Ranji Trophy. In the old days when you played in the South Zone, other than playing Hyderabad or Tamil Nadu, I think it is fair to say, without being disrespectful, that a lot of other teams you could take it not for granted but you could certainly take it a little bit more lightly.

"I don't think there is any team in the South Zone today that you can walk in and say you will beat comfortably," he concluded.