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Former India coach Rahul Dravid has opened up on the culture of star players in Indian cricket. Speaking at an event on Monday, Dravid opined that every sport requires a set of heroes to thrive and to be a part of popular culture.

The views of the former Indian captain and head coach are in stark contrast to that of the current head coach Gautam Gambhir, who has time and again cited the importance of team success over individual performance in team sports.

Speaking to the Wisden Scoop podcast, Dravid elaborated that to achieve the status of a sporting icon in the country, one requires years of sacrifice and consistency.

On the Scoop (Wisden) podcast, Dravid said:

"Any sport needs its heroes, and I don’t think people become heroes without performances. You can’t capture the imagination of a nation if you don’t deliver on the field, especially in India, where you get a lot of praise for what you do, but also a lot of brickbats. There’s a lot of scrutiny and constant focus on you. So to become a legend or a superstar in India means you’ve done a lot of things right, and in the process, you’ve also helped your team win."

The former Indian captain was also questioned about India's below par performances in the Test arena in recent times under Gambhir. India had tasted unprecedented success in the white ball format in Gambhir's era of coaching where the men in blue won the ICC Champions trophy and the T20 world cup. However, the team failed to deliver in the longest format losing series against the Kiwis and the Proteas and failing to retain the Border-Gavaskar Trophy.

Dravid conceded that the absence of senior players had taken a toll on the team and said that "replacing established cricketers is never easy".

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The former India captain noted the value of players such as Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli and Ravichandran Ashwin for a long number of years.

Dravid added:

"The passion to do well in red-ball cricket is definitely there. We’ve had a couple of series where we haven’t performed as well as an Indian team, and that can happen. We are also missing a few key players, with some of the big names having recently retired – Rohit, Virat and Ashwin – and it is not easy to replace players like that. But Indian cricket remains very strong. I still believe the Indian team will be competitive in every format it plays. It may take a little time, but hopefully this season we will be able to turn things around."

The former captain added that India will continue to perform well in Test cricket even in spite of a string of recent poor performances. According to him Indian cricket is in a strong enough position to continue performing well across all formats of the game.