Rahul Dravid Urges BCCI To Prioritize Which Domestic Tournaments It Wants To Conduct In The 2020-21 Season

Rahul Dravid, the former Indian captain and the current head of the National Cricket Academy, has stressed on the Board of Control for Cricket in India [BCCI] to prioritize the domestic tournaments that they would like to conduct in the 2020-21 season as he all but ruled out the possibility of staging a full-fledged season this time around.

A total of 2036 domestic game cutting across various age groups were conducted by the BCCI in the 2019-20 season. Under normal circumstances, state associations would have started conducting First-Class games from as early as July to prepare for the upcoming season. T20 tournaments like Tamil Nadu Premier League have already been postponed while the NCA is yet to resume its operations. Dravid said that it is not clear when the official SOP’s will be handed for the resumption of domestic cricket in the country.

‘Hopefully, if we’re able to find a level of cure or vaccine even towards the end of the year, we’ll be in a position to be able to complete, even if not the whole domestic season, but large parts of it,” Rahul Dravid said in a webinar hosted by Deccan Herald.

“Obviously prioritizing what that would be is important so that young boys and girls don’t miss out on cricket for a year. We’ve been lucky so far [that the pandemic started in March towards the end of BCCI’s domestic season], but come October, things might start getting stressful,”  he added.

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‘I think it’ll start hitting us more’- Rahul Dravid

Rahul Dravid added that BCCI was in a way lucky that the pandemic started at the end of Indian cricket’s domestic season back in March, but he reckoned that once October rolls around, things could get stressful for all those involved.

“A few international tournaments have been canceled and repositioned, and people can always find time and place for that, but once October comes around, that’s when I think it’ll start hitting us more. The next domestic season, for a lot of our young domestic players – juniors, Under-16s, Under-19s, and women cricketers – start in October,” said Rahul Dravid.

‘If we aren’t able to get back to a level of normalcy from then – it could take longer – we’ll see the real impact on our domestic cricket and grassroots cricket. This year is probably more important for someone in his final year of Under-19s, than say for someone who is 23-24.” he added.

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