Shubman Gill would have realised how difficult it is for him to actually gear up for the Test format: Rahul Dravid

Former Team India head coach Rahul Dravid has revealed that the busy schedule is one of the key reasons behind India’s dip in performance in the longest format of the game in the last two years.

Interestingly, India suffered two consecutive whitewashes to SENA nations at home to New Zealand by 0-3 and to South Africa by 0-3. However, Shubman Gill, the Indian Test captain, requested the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) to conduct a 15-day camp before any future Test series to have enough time to prepare for the series.

“Shubman has kind of alluded to it a little bit, just recently, because I think he's one who experienced that. He's one who actually played recently for us in all of the three formats so I think he would have realised how difficult it is for him to actually gear up for the Test format. The guys that play all three formats, they keep moving from one format to the other,” Rahul Dravid said at an event as quoted by ESPNCricinfo.

"There were times when we would get to a Test match three to four days before the match, and then when we start practising for the Test match, [and] when you look back at the last time that some of these guys had actually hit a red ball, it might have been four months ago or five months ago,” he added.

"You look at the hitting part, and the way people are hitting today in white-ball cricket, it's because they are able to practise it a lot more. A lot of these boys who spend two-and-a-half months in the IPL, all they are doing is practising how many sixes they can hit, so they are getting much better at it," he concluded.

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