"If you look at Indian cricket today, Indian cricket is extremely strong, it's extremely powerful," Dravid said the Mount Joy Cricket Club function as reported by the news agency PTI. "One of the big reasons for that is that talent comes from everywhere, from all over the country. If you go back to the time of, say, GR Vishwanath or even when I was starting out, most of the talent came from the big cities or a few states." "Even if there were talented boys in smaller places, they had to come to the big cities to play cricket. But today I think you see in Indian cricket that boys are coming from everywhere," he added. Dravid also cited the example of India's premier domestic tournament, the Ranji Trophy, where all the teams are now competitive. "You just look at the standard of the Ranji Trophy. In the old days when you played in the South Zone, other than playing Hyderabad or Tamil Nadu, I think it is fair to say, without being disrespectful, that a lot of other teams you could take it not for granted but you could certainly take it a little bit more lightly." "I don't think there is any team in the South Zone today that you can walk in and say you will beat comfortably," said Dravid. The former coach recently joined Indian premier League (IPL) franchise Rajasthan Royals in head coach position. Before that, he worked with the India men's senior team for nearly three years and ended the 11-year ICC trophy drought with T20 World Cup 2024 victory.