10 takeaways from Rahul Dravid's MAK Pataudi Lecture

#4 On youth cricket when he played

“Wake up at 5:30. Get ready, quick breakfast, travel a good 30 kilometres to the ground. Play the match and get back home by 6 pm if the traffic hasn’t been too bad. Here’s the toughest part, which is also the same.

“At that match, as a young nine or ten-year-old cricketer, sometimes you don’t even play. Sometimes you get out the first ball and have nothing to do for the rest of the day.

“On worse occasions, the umpire gives you a bad decision because you were batting too slow in an improbable chase and just delaying his return home.

“Sometimes, you just do nothing the whole day, get shouted by your coach for not giving the star player water, the instant he asked for it. At some point, how could no ten-year-kid, ask himself or herself, if it’s worth all the effort? What is the modern parent’s view of this situation? They look at cricket and say that’s a lot of time away from home.”