Rahul Dravid the former cricketer of Indian international team has given a spectacular speech at the Mansur Ali Khan Pataudi Memorial Lecture.
One among the greatest Indian cricket players Rahul Dravis now gave work to his voice to rise for the young cricketers.
He made many statements during his lecture here are the five important points.
“What I am trying to say here is that our world, particularly in the big cities, has changed dramatically. It means cricket's own appeal to both children and parents has changed considerably. The generation when you could say that "every Indian baby is born with a cricket bat in the hand" is well behind us.”
“The age group that gives academies its biggest revenues is the youngest - the beginners, age five upwards. Yet they are paid the least attention. Usually, it is the junior-most coach who works with the hardest-to-handle youngest kids. Kids that age can't be stuck into the nets and expected to obediently do drills. Five-year-olds need to be entertained for the entire duration of their training and be taught skills as part of that enjoyment.”
“A decent academy that runs from June to January with weekends-only sessions costs parents anything between Rs 14,000-15,000 a year. Summer camps are about Rs 6,000, this only for practice, nets. If you want to play matches, you need more to cover ground fees, umpire fees, transportation. Then there is the kit, which is pretty expensive. What happens to those boys who cannot afford it? How do we get them into the system? How do we ensure we have given them a fair chance and are watched at least once by scouts and coaches? There are ways: the state associations could use a portion of their funds to run free camps at government schools for their children.”
“Just like all teams now have anti-corruption briefings, I think every Under-16 state cricketer should go through a proper counselling session, organised by his state association, with educators who understand the situation that the young cricketer is in. It is important for our young cricketers to continue with their education - even if all the time away from schools makes it hard for them to finish their graduation. It will be something they can go back to in case the cricket dream doesn't come true for some reason. But aside from all that, it is important to stay connected to school and college because it will mean they have friends outside cricket, conversations outside cricket and life experiences that are not connected to cricket.”
“At 14 it may be in the matter of the age criteria, at 25 it may be fixing and corruption. How are the two different in any way? In both cases, is it not blatant cheating?”
