Rahul Dravid feels the impact of Covid-19 will be greatly felt by Indian cricket and domestic circuit in general if play is not able to resume in another couple of months. The former India captain believes the real impact of the pandemic will be seen in Indian cricket around October, especially when it comes to domestic cricket.

“We’ve been lucky so far [that the pandemic started in March towards the end of BCCI’s domestic season], but come October, things might start getting stressful,” Dravid told the Deccan Herald.

“A few international tournaments have been cancelled and repositioned, and people can always find time and place for that, but once October comes around, that’s when I think it’ll start hitting us more. The next domestic season, for a lot of our young domestic players juniors, Under-16s, Under-19s, and women cricketers start in October.”

India has a robust domestic cricket system with tournaments like Ranji Trophy, Duleep Trophy, Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy played all around the year. But this time around, there has been no clarity yet from the BCCI regarding the start of domestic cricket season yet.

“If we aren’t able to get back to a level of normalcy from then it could take longer; we’ll see the real impact on our domestic cricket and grassroots cricket. This year is probably more important for someone in his final year of Under-19s than say for someone who is 23-24,” Dravid told the Deccan Herald.

Indian players will resume playing competitive cricket in September when the Indian Premier League makes a comeback in the United Arab Emirates. India will then travel to Australia for three T20Is, four Tests and three ODIs, the tour starting in November.

Cricket has been greatly affected by the Covid-19 pandemic. The game was stopped for several months due to the rise in cases of the infectious disease and the lockdowns imposed by government. Cricket boards scrambled to rise to the challenge as they faced a cash crunch and other problems due to non-activity. It is a known fact that Cricket Australia (CA) had to lay off several employees due to the pandemic.