India are on the highest of the ICC males’s T20I rankings, dominating the world stage heading into the T20 World Cup title defence at residence in underneath 10 days. Gautam Gambhir’s males are on a roll within the format, having not tasted defeat in any collection since he took over from Rahul Dravid as head coach, publish June 2024.
Nevertheless, India’s Take a look at group has skilled a drastic slide in high quality, with their residence fortress being breached twice in underneath a yr by New Zealand and South Africa. India are but to win a Take a look at collection towards a top-ranked nation underneath Gambhir, with their solitary collection win coming over the West Indies at residence in October 2025.
Having led India to the 2023 World Take a look at Championship ultimate, Dravid opened up on the problem for India’s long-format batters who additionally persistently change throughout for ODI and T20I commitments. Talking at a guide launch occasion in Bengaluru on Wednesday, Dravid opened up on the problem of allotting preparatory time for India’s all-format batters, a priority than Take a look at skipper Shubman Gill too had just lately echoed.
“One of many issues I understood as a coach, particularly the blokes that play all three codecs, they preserve shifting from one format to the opposite,” mentioned Dravid. “There have been occasions once we would get to a Take a look at match three to 4 days earlier than the match, after which once we begin practising for the Take a look at match, [and] once you look again on the final time that a few of these guys had truly hit a pink ball, it might need been 4 months in the past or 5 months in the past.
“That’s turn out to be actually a problem, how do you nearly discover the time to have the ability to develop a few of the expertise which might be arduous. To play on turning tracks, or play on seaming wickets, doing that for hours and hours in a Take a look at match is just not straightforward. It requires ability,” the previous India captain added.
Dravid recounted his days with the India facet the place gamers had ample time to modify between the Take a look at and the ODI format earlier than the raging creation of T20Is after 2007.
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“Now, one of many issues that has turn out to be a bit more durable in red-ball cricket is quite a lot of our guys who play all of the three codecs, or who play the quantity of cricket that they’re taking part in, generally don’t have the time to have the ability to practise red-ball cricket as a lot.”
“I believe Shubman has form of alluded to it just a little bit, only recently, as a result of I believe he’s one who skilled that. He’s one who truly performed just lately for us in the entire three codecs so I believe he would have realised how troublesome it’s for him to truly gear up for the Take a look at format,” Dravid added.
India are at present sixth within the ICC World Take a look at Championship 2025-27 cycle, with their subsequent red-ball collection marked solely throughout the Indian low season in August, in Sri Lanka.