Every Indian cricketer, be it at the state or an under-19, u-21 levels, always dreams of playing for the Indian team and the IPL. Out of the two, it may be relatively easy for a player to get into an IPL side, as there are a number of teams in the IPL, who look for local players.
But, the IPL sides would also be eager to choose cricketers, who have performed in the domestic circuit, which includes Ranji Trophy. The tournament in itself may not be looked upon as an eye-catching one, but it is the consistent performers of this competition that often grab a life-changing deal with one of the IPL franchises.
Rajasthan Royals mentor and former Indian batsman Rahul Dravid wants young cricketers to take Ranji Trophy seriously.
"My advice to young players is they also (should) take the Ranji Trophy very, very seriously, because I think, without playing consistently successful domestic cricket, it is very, very unlikely that you will be able to succeed coming to the IPL," PTI quoted Dravid as saying.
Though, the format of the game may be different as far as IPL and the Ranji Trophy are concerned, the basics of the game remains the same. Unless, you have the basics right, it would be very difficult to survive as a batsman or a bowler in today's world.
One needs to look at Rahul Dravid's record in the IPL, where he scored 2,174 runs. During his IPL tenure as well, he looked solid at the batting crease and scored freely. Among the current crop of players, Ajinkya Rahane bats similar to Dravid, though he might be a bit aggressive than the former Indian skipper.
Dravid stated that they look at Ranji trophy performances as well before picking players.
"When we pick players, we look a lot at their Ranji Trophy performance as well. Of course, there are specific T20 skills that we are looking for but we also want to see hunger, we also want to see consistency and we also want to see somebody who can deliver under pressure."
With players such as Shane Watson, Tim Southee, James Faulkner, Karun Nair, Rajat Bhatia, Rahane, they have a good mix of Indian and foreign players to do well in IPL 2015.
Rahaul Dravid can expect the team to perform better this season. The Royals finished fifth in IPL 2014.
They will play their first match against Kings XI Punjab on 10 April.
