Pitches more important than bat laws to strike a balance: Dravid
Former India captain Rahul Dravid feels the nature of pitches is more important than bat size when it comes to striking a balance between bowlers and batsmen. The ICC has recently come down heavily on the use of thick bats, issuing guidelines of a maximum depth of 67mm and 40mm thick edges. But Dravid feels only a handful of batsmen were using bigger bats.
“The results will take time to show, I think a year or so. The regulations aren’t very drastic. Only a few players were using very big bats. But it was going that way,” said Dravid at an event organised by the FICCI Ladies Organisation on Tuesday to felicitate India women’s captain Mithali Raj and fast bowler Jhulan Goswami.
“But it’s more important you provide good wickets. The balance of cricket has got to do more with the wickets than the size of the bats,” said Dravid, who is India’s overseas batting consultant apart from being India A and U-19 coach. With the next U-19 World Cup (to be held in New Zealand) only a few months away, Dravid defended the decision to not allow any player to play more than one World Cup even if he was eligible. “When I took over the under-19, one of the things I felt was (players) stay on and play too much of under-19 cricket which I think was dangerous. So we took a decision of not allowing anyone to play more than one World Cup,” he said.
“That means five players of the last World Cup were eligible to play this one too --- players like Washington Sundar, Zeeshan Ansari, Mahipal Lomror and Armaan Jaffer. The positive for me from this is part of them have been picked for the Ranji Trophy. So even the state associations are looking ahead and not forcing them to play U-19 cricket. Their mindsets and horizons are increasing,” said Dravid.
PRITHVI SHAW TO PLAY U-19 WORLD CUP
Dravid confirmed that Shaw, a talented Mumbai teenage batsmen, who made his Ranji Trophy debut last season and scored 154 in the Duleep Trophy final, will play the 2018 World Cup despite not making the squad announced for the U-19 Asia Cup in Malaysia from November 9-20.
“Age-group cricket has a purpose to solve but it’s limited. From then on, you have to go on and play men’s cricket. This is what we decided with Prithvi too. At the moment we definitely want him to be part of the World Cup team but as and when the opportunity for him to play first-class cricket came, we were able to give him that leeway,” said Dravid.