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CONTENTS Introduction: Your regular, everyday superstar > Sambit Bal THE CRICKETER
Extravagantly sound > Mukul Kesavan The talent myth > Suresh Menon The man who acquired greatness > Sambit Bal The grit to be great > Sanjay Manjrekar A cricketer most evolved > Aakash Chopra The job he fell out of love with > Sidharth Monga ‘The best batting happens when you are batting in the present’ > Sambit Bal IN THE WORDS OF HIS PEERS
The rock around whom the rest moved > John Wright A gentleman champion of timeless steel and dignity > Ed Smith The eternal student > Greg Chappell The master will see you now (and always) > Suresh Raina ‘I didn’t beat him more than a ball in a row’ > Jason Gillespie His team, his time > Rahul Bhattachariya THE GREAT INNINGS
Kolkata 2001: Hercules on second fiddle > Sidharth Monga Leeds 2002: The monk of Headingley > Sanjay Bangar Adelaide 2003: Twin treatises in courage > Rohit Brijnath Rawalpindi 2004: Notes from an ugly epic > Rahul Bhattacharya Jamaica 2006: The Kingston grind > Siddhartha Vaidyanathan Nottingham 2011: A part of his best self > Sharda Ugra ‘There are no easy catches in the slips’ > Nagraj Gollapudi THE MAN
Dignity, grace, conscience > Rohit Brijnath A sportsman of model decorum > Gideon Haigh The reason I got married > Jarrod Kimber The money moment > Samir Chopra Start as you mean to go on > Fazal Khaleel My husband the perfectionist > Vijeeta Dravid ‘When you’ve played at the top, it’s hard to settle for second-best’ > Interview by Sharda Ugra ‘Everything that has given cricket its power has started from the fan’ > Rahul Dravid THE NUMBERS
The man they couldn’t move > S Rajesh Records Acknowledgements
Your regular, everyday superstar SAMBIT BAL
A t Rahul Dravid’s retirement press conference, most things ran along expected lines. Dravid came
dressed smartly – white shirt, black jacket, hair neatly combed – looking boyish, studious and a bit nervous. His family trooped in behind him; Anil Kumble sat by his side and Javagal Srinath and GR Viswanath in the first row. There was the familiar chaos at the start, with photographers crowding the dais and being heckled by their mates. To those who knew him, Dravid’s retirement would not have come as a surprise. The manner of his departure bore the stamp of the man: not for him the fanfare of a build-up to a farewell Test, the showmanship of a final doffing o f the hat, or a milking of emotions.
He wouldn’t be human if he hadn’t wished for a better finish than the airy, un-Dravid-like waft that carried the ball into the lap of g ully in his final innings, in Adelaide, but he was mature and pragmatic enough to accept that fairytale endings are a matter of chance: it would have been futile trying to wait for one or to try to manufacture one. Dravid read from a prepared text. The words were carefully chosen – no flash, not overly sentimental, a long list of thank yous, and one poignant sentence at the end that was perfect headline material. Kumble too r ead out a tribute that had all the right wor ds, and a touch of humour. The twist, and the tears (well, almost) came from the most unlikely quarter. During his years with the BCCI, N Srinivasan, who also runs India Cements, has cultivated the image of a tough and taciturn overlord who takes no prisoners. Unlike Dravid and Kumble, he spoke extempore. He was eloquent and emotional, and because they came from the heart, his words resonated in the room. It was a lovely passage on its own, for it allowed those present a rare glimpse of the softer side of the most powerful man in Indian cricket, and arguably world cricket. Those who have known him for long talk about Srinivasan’s love for cricket, but in recent times the BCCI president’s public image has been that of an authoritarian, even somewhat uncaring, figure. But on this day his obvious affection for Dravid drew out the cricket lover in him. Dravid can have that effect on people, on those who genuinely love the game, those who have been drawn to cricket by its wholesome and timeless qualities, its intellectual dimensions, and its innate grace and beauty. In many ways Dravid personified many aspects of Test cricket that fans find appealing. It was remarkable, but hardly surprising, that his retirement evoked as many appreciations in the media that were about the cricketer as much as they were about the person. Dravid was perceptive enough to notice the difference between the obligatory platitudes that are part of the journalistic routine for such occasions and the sincerity in the tributes that came his way. What was touching, he said, was that it was obvious that people had taken the time to think about what they wrote, not merely dashed off pieces that were mandated. The reason is straightforward. Dravid the cricketer was immense, but the man is just as exceptional, if not more so, which is amazing, because to remain a successful athlete at the highest level for as long as he did requires a degree of self-absorption and even narcissism. This is not to suggest that
there ar en’t nice men in spo rt – in fact, Indian cricket was blessed that it had so many at the same time – but rar ely does sport allow its successful pr actitioner s to develop rounded personalities. In a sense, that was Dravid’s biggest triumph. It would be hard to find a cricketer who was as devoted and consumed by his craft, or one who spent as much time polishing it, but he also found energy and time to understand and engage with the world outside cricket. He often compared the life of the Indian cricketer to a fish bowl, but for himself he was determined never to be trapped. It was good to know him – not in the sense of how it feels good to know a superstar, but because he made it possible for you to engage with him at a normal level. He was earnest and curious, and had varied interests. He would ask me as many questions about my profession as I did him about his. My profession demands the discipline of keeping a distance from your subjects. With Dravid that code was bro ken. It’s not that I cultivated a friendship with him deliberately. It developed o rganically over the years, over phone calls about the occasional pieces he wrote for us, over meals on tours, over chats about parenting and books, over shared thoughts and interests. That none of it has ever felt wrong has been down to the kind of person he is. There is a normalcy about him that is almost abnormal. There are public figures who go out of their way to put you at ease, but the effort involved is palpable. Dravid does it just by being himself. There is no affectation and artifice involved. Not that he is unaware of his stardom or is falsely modest about his achievements, but he can step outside all that and connect with the world at a real level. It’s almost as if he leaves that part of his life behind him when he leaves the cricket field. And perhaps that’s why he can see cricket fro m the outside, reflect on it objectively, and see the iro nies and futilities of stardom. It’s a rare and remarkable quality. It has helped him engage in relationships in the outside world without baggage. It made him one of the rare cricketers a journalist could afford to be friends with without compromising on professionalism. Through the years our relationship has never been hostage to what was written about him on ESPNcricinfo under my watch. You could write about a poor performance or a poor run of scores from Dravid without worrying about his response, because he understood that you had to be honest to your job, like he did. The very first time I spoke to him was to ask him, over the phone, if he would write a piece on Sachin Tendulkar on the occasion of his 100th Test. I didn’t know what to expect, but Dravid agreed, and insisted he would write it himself. We didn’t discuss a fee. He wrote for us a few times after that, and each time the copy would turn up neat. There would be times he would call to tweak a line o r two. He would later tell me that he had got a friend to look through the copy before he sent it over, which was impressive, given the prevailing culture of player columns, where some players fir st read pieces that run under their bylines – if they do so at all – after they are published. Apart from my first long and satisfying interview with him in 2003, after he had batted India to a win in the Adelaide Test, he didn’t submit to another until the end of the English summer of 2011, which turned out to be, for him personally, one of the greatest of his career. In six of the eight Test innings he was forced to open in difficult conditions, and in the Oval Test, after carrying his bat through in the first innings, as his team-mates combusted aro und him, he was back facing the new ball late in the day, when England enfo rced the follow-on. That was the theme through his career: when a tough job needed to be done, it was Dravid India
turned to. He didn’t like opening, but he did open. First slip was his natural habitat, but he yielded the position because a team-mate with a bad back found it difficult to stand at second. He did the tough press conferences. And at the fag end of his career, he made his international T20 debut, long after he had opted out of format, because India were struggling to put together an XI. I asked him if he ever felt like the sacrificial lamb. I was convinced he did. Dravid’s response was disarmingly simple. “I never saw it that way. To me it felt like I was being trusted to do a tough job by the team. It made me feel valued.” I spoke to him again after the tour of Australia, where he seemed to find every conceivable way there is of getting bowled. His mind was almost made up about retirement. I asked him if, with the benefit of hindsight, he now regretted not taking the opportunity to leave on a high after the tour of England. He would have gone, he said, if he had had a poor series. But having done so well, he felt obliged to travel to Australia, where the team had never won a Test series. And no, there were no regrets. Indian cricket may find a batsman as capable, but to find a man as exceptional is likely to be far tougher. This book, a collection of fresh pieces and ones previously published on ESPNcricinfo and in some of its sister publications, is an exploration of the cricketer and the man, and it employs a wide range of voices – those of writers, team-mates, opponents, and even Dravid’s wife. Some of these articles have been edited, rewritten and expanded – the piece by Vijeeta Dravid, who has not only looked after their home but been her husband’s best sounding board, is longer here than the version that appeared on the website, and the interview with Dravid after his retirement, too, is an unabridged version. This book doesn’t purport to be definitive, but in its five sections – the batsman and what he meant to Indian cricket, impressions by team-mates and other peers, his finest innings, personal accounts of the man, and interviews with Dravid over the years – it aims to provide a well-rounded portrait of a cricketer who made competitiveness and grace perfect companions, and brought dignity to his sport even as he fought fiercely in his team’s corner. Sambit Bal is the editor of ESPNcricinfo
The cricketer
Without too much effort Dravid could also keep his head when all about him were losing theirs and blaming it on him, as well as trust himself when all men doubted him. His appro ach to sport, and indeed life itself, has been Kiplingesque. Suresh Menon, The talent myth, page 18
[1]
Extravagantly sound MUKUL KESAVAN
I
s Rahul Dravid a great batsman? If this is the big question, there’s a flotilla of more specific questions that follow it in close formation. Is Dravid the greatest batsman ever to represent India? Does he have a claim to being the greatest batsman in the world today? To play sublime innings every now and then isn’t enough. On this score Dravid was the most dependable batsman India ever produced, statistically more reliable than Gavaskar, which is a staggering achievement. I’d argue that Gavaskar faced the greater challenges: he opened the batting against better fast bowlers without a helmet, but a batsman can only play to the conditions he’s given, so that can’t be held against Dravid. You could also argue that Tendulkar in his pomp averaged roughly what Dravid did in his, and that he made those runs at a gr eater r ate, and that would be true. It’s also true that to compare the figures of a completed career against one that’s still a work in progress is misleading: averages taper off towards the end of a player’s span. Dravid finished in the early 50s, which is where Gavaskar ended his wonderful career. Still, the fact that a pessimistic for ecast has Dravid declining to Gavaskar ’s statistical level, says something about the height at which he curr ently stands. On pretty much every count Dravid’s record is outstanding. He has by far the best record for an Indian batsman away from home, a crucial statistic for a team that’s notoriously shaky at dealing with foreign conditions. In wisden.com’s list of the top 100 innings, Dravid’s best centuries were ranked higher than Tendulkar’s. But figures aren’t everything. If they were, we wouldn’t be asking the question we started with. Nobody asks it of Lara or Tendulkar anymore; we know they are great batsmen. So why, despite the massive consistency of his record, do we not take Dravid’s greatness for granted? The simple answer is that Dravid played all his cricket in the shadow of Tendulkar, regarded by most critics as the greatest batsman in the history of Indian cricket. By the time Dravid began playing Test cricket, Tendulkar was a Test star of about seven years’ standing. If the early nineties belonged to Lara, the second half of the decade was Tendulkar’s. The seal on Tendulkar’s pre-eminence was affixed by Don Bradman himself, when he obser ved that Tendulkar ’s batsmanship resembled his own. It is natural for a young batsman to supersede the champion of the previous generation, as in the manner in which Tendulkar r eplaced Mohammad Azharuddin. But prodigies like Tendulkar upset this sequence: to Dravid, three months older than the great Mumbaikar, it must have sometimes seemed that he had been sentenced to second fiddle for life. But through the first half of the 2000s Dravid, by sheer weight of runs, was the most valuable batsman in the Indian side. That his peak coincided with a r elative decline in Tendulkar ’s perfo rmance underlined his pre-eminence. Journalists and commentators everywhere acknowledged with respect and admiration Dravid’s achievement, but there was no great rush to celebrate the arrival of a new “gr eat”. It is the fate of low-profile high perfo rmers to be taken for gr anted.
Also, Dravid is a great defensive batsman and the label “great” is generally applied to batsmen who dominate the bowling, whose preferred style, as with Lara and Tendulkar, is attack, not attrition. Attacking batsmen are sexier than defensive ones. Had Tendulkar in his pomp not walked in at his assigned position in the batting order, collective disappointment would have rustled round the arena. Not so with Dravid. He never made your pulse race; acknowledging the greatness of those who do, like Viv Richards or Tendulkar, comes more easily, more naturally. But this can’t be the whole explanation. Gavaskar played most of his innings in defensive mode and the Indian cricketing public wasted no time in hailing him as the greatest ever. This had something to do with his r ecord-breaking debut series, where he scor ed 774 runs in fo ur Tests with four centuries and three fifties. In the greatness stakes, getting off to an early start helps (Tendulkar), as does an explosive one (Gavaskar). The fact that Gavaskar was an opening batsman invested his innings with drama: there’s something about an opening batsman facing down fast bowlers that is dramatic and exciting in itself. Also, Gavaskar generally closed out his centuries, unlike Dravid, who through the first half of his career had the fr ustrating habit of g etting himself out in the eighties and nineties. But even allowing for these differences, it’s curious that we admire Dravid where once we stood in awe of Gavaskar. I think the reason for this has to do with Dravid’s style of batsmanship. Spectators and cricket writers reserve their highest praise for batsmanship that seems effortless. The oohs that follow Tendulkar’s attenuated straight drive, the high-elbow one minus follow-through, are our tributes to magic. What timing! Genius! Dravid’s batting style was the opposite of effortless. It was elaborate, flourishing and effortful. You seldom applauded a Dravid stroke for its velocity or timing. Energetic hook shots dribbled over the boundary line. Drives were hit hard into the ground, and nothing was ever hit on the up. Every shot was preceded by a high, flourishing backlift, but unlike Lara, whose backlift ended in high-risk shotmaking, Dravid’s arabesques more often than not resulted in the ball being dropped by his feet for a single. And the man-in-a-bunker effect was exagger ated by the stance: low, dogged, sweat running off him in rivulets. Dravid didn’t fit into the rudimentary templates that the great art of coarse cricket writing has invented for batsmen. Here a sound technique always implies a “compact defence”. Well, Dravid’s defence wasn’t compact: it was extravagant. His wrists twirled, his bat looped before the ball was disciplined into the ground. Dravid was a great batsman who could do everything: he hooked, pulled, cut, swept, flicked and drove, but his entire technique was centred on the need to make sure that the ball hit the ground first. To that end he played the ball later than any batsman in cricket; so late that more often than not the ball would ricochet off an angled bat and hit the ground at a steep angle. Dravid’s apparent effortfulness, his sadhu-like indiffer ence to the sex appeal of sho ts hit on the up, the absence of ooh-making timing, were symptoms of his decision to sacrifice velocity, to reduce risk. The reason his shot-making sometimes looked studied (his pull, for example, where he rolled his wrists over the ball with almost pedantic deliberation) was because he was wholly committed to the ground beneath his feet. His methods weren’t orthodox. It’s impossible for a lay viewer to know how a great player achieves his effects, but for what it’s worth I think the flourish in Dravid’s batting was a way of finding balance and delaying till the last possible second the decision to play. Watching him bat was like watching the movement of an old-fashioned clock: the pendulum working, gears and levers
moving in perfect, elaborate accord to strike the hour when it’s due and not a second earlier. Style and idiosyncrasy in cricket are associated with attacking batsmanship. Dravid taught us that batsmen can be defensively sound in an original way. Someone should break his technique down into its component parts so it can be taught to others at a time when defensive techniques are atrophying. Tendulkar has been pinged more often than I can count, and Sehwag without a helmet wouldn’t last the length of a Test match. Dravid almost never got hit by the fast men. More than any batsman of this age, he can be compared with the greats of the pre-helmet epoch, because you know that he owed his runs to his technical genius, not to the insurance he wore on his head. Mukul Kesavan is a writer based in New Delhi. A version of this article was first published in the print version of Cricinfo Magazine in August 2006
Of the 210 catches Dravid took in Test matches, mo re than half were off the bowling of Anil Kumble (55) and Harbhajan Singh (51).
[2]
The talent myth SURESH MENON
I
t is fashionable in our times to claim that there is no such thing as talent and that all achievement is the result of hard work, or, in the words of Malcolm Gladwell, the “10,000-hour rule”. A slew of recent books – Matthew Syed’s Bounce, David Shenk’s The Genius in All of Us, Gladwell’s Outliers among them – has been hammering this idea home. They are not designated self-help manuals but provide succour to the untalented. Talent is Overrated is the unambiguous title of a book by Geoff Colvin, where he speaks of “deliberate practice” as being more crucial than talent. The 10,000-hour rule refers to the amount of time someone has to work at his craft to reach the highest level. The modern reductive thinking was set off by the work of Anders Ericsson, a psychologist and researcher at Flor ida State University. Most popular books on the subject quote his work. The difference between the average joe and VS Naipaul is that the latter works harder and puts in a lot more hours. Ditto with Roger Federer or Tiger Woods or Eric Clapton. What a relief for the rest of us! We are not less talented at all – we merely can’t be bothered to spend all our time doing just the one thing. I mean, we have a life! There is a comfort in such smug thinking. It is at once an insult to a person’s ability and an inspiration for those who have neither the talent nor the inclination o f the successful. Forget 10,000 hours. I can practice continuously for 10,000 days and still not be a Sachin Tendulkar. Or a Kevin Pietersen. For the essential flaw in the argument is that you need to have something to build on. And that something is talent. Genius, said Edison, is 99% perspiration and 1% inspiration. But without that 1%, you do not become a 99% genius. Just a dud. Talent without hard work withers early; hard work without talent gets you nowhere. The former England batsman and now author Ed Smith has a simple definition for “talent”. “It is what you can’t learn, hone or teach… a skill can be learned, talent can’t… talent is Garry Sobers, talent is Jimi Hendrix…” Not so long ago, the lack of talent was the theme of many studies of Pete Sampras. He was seen as boring, mechanical, untalented, and his 14 Grand Slam titles were seen as the result of hard work and self-denial. One of the greatest tennis players of all time was seen as untalented because he was not flamboyant – a common enough mistake for the unsophisticated fan to make, but scary when given respectability by columnists and pop psychologists. The thought was articulated by Sanjay Manjrekar in a piece. The former India player – coincidentally the man Rahul Dravid replaced – wrote, “That you don’t need to have great talent to become a sportsman is reinforced by Dravid’s achievements.” This is one of sport’s biggest misconceptions. It leads to the spurious conclusion that some top performers – Sampras, Gary Lineker, Sunil Gavaskar – are overachievers who made a little talent go a long way.
This is the Fallacy of Incomplete Reasoning. The definition of talent is far too restrictive. This “talent” clearly does not take into account the stroke play Dravid was capable of – the on side was his, ust as the off side was Sourav Ganguly’s in India’s great middle order of the time. Worse, it does not even consider mental toughness, the ability to read a game, the skill to change tack at will. Fifteen years at the top level without talent? Over 10,000 runs each in two forms of the game without talent? Three Test centuries at the age of 39 in England without talent? Then let us all drink what Dravid drinks. When Dravid went out to bat at Lord’s in his final Test there, the rest of us were not thinking, “Gosh, if only I had listened to my cr icket coach, I would have been in his place!” At least some of us were marvelling at the mental toughness and the sheer grit of the man. The ability to wor k hard, the skill to swallow disappointments and return to the fr ay, the cussedness needed to keep at it and excel at it are all par t of the concept of “talent”. Or have to be. By limiting the definition we fall for the seductive arguments of pop psychology, thus doing the talented an injustice. And we ignore the mystique that is the essential companion of the great performer. The rich are different from you and me, said the writer F Scott Fitzgerald. So are the talented. They are different from you and me. Dravid overcame more problems in the course of a single innings than many of us do in a whole year. You cannot do that without talent. Smith has said that talent, ironically, “has a nasty knack of protecting the talented from the urge to self-improve”. Dravid’s greatness lay in the fact that he worked on preserving his talent, on honing skills that would help the talent become productive, and in the fact that from his teens he was already one of the most talented batsmen in the country. The first two would have been meaningless without the third. Cricket is the only sport where the term “old-fashioned” is a compliment. It is a quirk of the language, and perhaps of the game itself, that “old-fashioned” in cricket does not mean hidebound, inflexible or anything negative. Dravid was an old-fashio ned cricketer who gave br eath and body to the qualities that cricket aspires to, all the more startling in an era where selfishness is mistaken for professionalism and bad behaviour seen as the rage to perfection. Dravid was as tough and as professional as they come, yet with a moral centre that was uncompromising. He befriended both triumph and disaster in his first Test, making as many as 95 but missing out on a century. Perhaps out of that experience grew his essential character, the ability to treat these two impostors just the same, as recommended by Rudyard Kipling. Without too much effort Dravid could also keep his head when all about him were losing theirs and blaming it on him, as well as trust himself when all men doubted him. His approach to sport, and indeed life itself, has been Kiplingesque. By any meaningful reckoning, traditional and experimental, he was India’s greatest match-winning batsman, with 24 away wins (Sachin Tendulkar has 20) where he averaged nearly 70. When imponderables are introduced into the equation, with such things as the ability to absorb pressure and match impact, he is the greatest series-defining batsman in the history of Test cricket, his count of eight series-defining performances greater than anybody else’s. In the trinity of Indian batsmanship – Sunil Gavaskar, Dravid and Tendulkar – each had a defined (and defining) role. They were the Creator, the Preserver and the Destroyer respectively. With the
bowlers and the wickets at their most fresh, Gavaskar opened the batting to create the platform on which the middle order could build. At No. 3, Dravid’s role was to preserve a good start or make up for a bad one (on 66 occasions he went in to bat with the score in single digits). Tendulkar was the destroyer incarnate, reducing grown men to tears as they saw their best deliveries disappear past the boundaries on either side of the wicket. In his peak years, between 2001 and 2006, it was Dravid’s batting that secured victories in England, Australia, Pakistan and the West Indies. Yet even in that period Dravid’s self-deprecatory manner, unusual among Indian players, was remarkable. “People want me to get out quickly so they can watch Tendulkar bat,” he said on one occasion; later he often compared himself to Virender Sehwag, to his own disadvantage. Asked if he would make a triple-century someday, Dravid replied that you would need a ten-day Test match for that to happen. It was a tone familiar to those who knew him off the field, but seldom accessible to those who only knew him from watching his batting on television. There was a harmony. The same subtlety and knowledge of angles that marked his batting were evident in his dealings with people and his handling of situations that called for tact and delicacy. He was arguably India’s greatest catcher at slip, with 210 Test victims in his bag; it was all about anticipation and positioning rather than flamboyance and showmanship. That combination of intensity and relaxation, self-awareness and modesty, Test orthodoxy and limited-overs creativity is rare. It is called talent, and is as much a function of greatness as the stunning on-drive and the powerful square cut, both of which Dravid was master o f. Suresh Menon is the editor of the Wisden Cricketers Almanack India
Dravids win-loss record as a Test captain (eight wins, six losses) is third among Indians who led in at least 20 Tests, next only to MS Dhoni (17-10) and Sourav Ganguly (21-13).
[3]
The man who acquired greatness SAMBIT BAL
T
he word “great” is subject to such careless and persistent abuse that you need to draw the lines afresh befor e you can use it proper ly. Once, when Virender Sehwag was carting the West Indian bowlers around in St Lucia in 2006, one of the more excitable members of the commentary team started to dro p the word “gr eat” quite liberally. It was certainly gr eat to watch, but was it really one o f the great innings? Was it even among Sehwag’s greatest? To take the discussion further, at 50 Tests, Sehwag’s numbers were superior to Sachin Tendulkar’s after the same number of games. Sehwag had more runs, more hundreds, and a better average. Yet Tendulkar was already a great player by his 50 th Test. Because by then he had passed that simple yet all-important test that defines greatness: you could place him in any age, any conditions, against any bowlers, and in any match situation, and you could say that he would score plenty of runs and score them with authority. With Tendulkar, as with Brian Lara, o r Viv Richards before them, gr eatness was established early. They had the gift, the genius. So did Mark Waugh. And VVS Laxman, who every once in a while can raise his game to a level where only genius can exist. But these two players fell short of greatness because their brilliance was fleeting, subject to moods. Their averages – in the forties – point to several lows and inconsistencies, and their car eers ar e poignant reminders that uncommon gifts alone do not guarantee gr eatness. Conversely, Rahul Dravid piled up the most compelling evidence in favour of the argument that greatness can exist outside genius. Or perhaps at least that the commonly held definitions of what constitutes genius ar e a tad narrow. There are ways and ways to measure greatness. Some stamp their greatness by the way they bat, the way they conjure up strokes that are beyond the reach of most. Richards had greatness written in his mere walk to the middle, Tendulkar in his precocity, and Lara in his incandescence. Theirs was a greatness easy to notice because they were different from the rest. To watch them bat was to feel awe. To watch them dispatch good balls to the boundary was to feel blessed. They made you feel grateful for their genius. Dravid’s batsmanship was often taken for granted because it was so firmly rooted in time-worn traditions – leaving the good balls, not hitting in the air or on the up, and because it was so utterly compr ehensible and lacking in mystique. But only those who have played the game at the highest level can fully appreciate the true meaning of Dravid’s craft. To see a good ball hit for four is a spectacle; surviving a g reat ball requires no less skill, though it rarely elicits awe. Watching a bouncer being hooked is among the most thrilling sights in cricket, but we often miss the artfulness and skill involved in leaving a bouncer. Few – Tendulkar and Lara included – have dealt with the short ball with greater poise than Dravid, whose eye never left the ball. He was hit a couple of times while trying to force the ball away, but rarely did you see him duck into
a bouncer. Dravid’s other great strength was also intangible, and entirely invisible. In Adelaide in 2003, he batted India to victory by scoring 305 runs in the two innings, occupying the crease for 835 minutes. His batting was as much about technical virtuosity as it was about the mind. Test cricket, he often says, is such a fulfilling experience because it challenges the mind continuously for four or five days. Dravid belonged to that priceless breed of champions whose mental resolve is at its strongest when the situation is dire. His 270 in Rawalpindi in 2004 wasn’t his most flawless innings. He benefited from two umpir ing decisio ns and a fielding lapse, but as was the case with the five hundreds that came befor e that innings, and a co uple of nineties, it came when India needed it most. Dravid was India’s most dependable, most consistent and most valuable batsman. But he did not merely provide India’s dazzling batsmen with a cushion, he was the pivot around which the Indian batting revolved. Sachin Tendulkar was India’s batsman of the ‘90s; Rahul Dravid made the 2000s his own. The batting average is only one parameter to judge a batsman by, but whichever way you look at it, an average of over 50 in more than 150 Tests should be enough to grant a player his place in history. That Dravid has a better average away from home should only add to the glow. However, the heart of his greatness doesn’t lie in the numbers but rather in the circumstances in which they have been compiled, and most of all, what they have meant for his team. It is Tendulkar ’s misfortune that his best years as a batsman coincided with India’s most abject ones as a team. His brilliant hundreds in Australia, South Africa and England were all solos, made as his team crumbled around him. It didn’t help that the Indian national side was hostage to ad hoc amateurism at the time. Dravid’s peak, on the other hand, coincided with a period of wholesome progr ess for Indian cricket, and in many ways Dravid was the singular embodiment of this pro gr ess. He was the model professional, wholehearted team man, progressive leader, and of course, lynchpin of Indian batting. The manner of playing is a fair pointer, and so are statistics, but to many the essence of a cricketer’s greatness lies in what his performances have meant to the team. Dravid’s figures were outstanding: he averaged more than 53 abroad, 21 of his 36 hundreds came away from home, and between 2001 and 2006, when India won 26 out of 66 Tests, he averaged more than 60. But to his team, Dravid meant much mor e than the numbers. He saved them fr om defeats in South Africa, West Indies and England, and set up wins in Sri Lanka, England and Australia. Barring Multan in 2004, he played a hand, often the critical one, in every Indian Test win abroad in his time. Even on the tour of Australia in 2008, when he was in the middle of one of the roughest phases of his career, he played a vital hand in setting up what has been India’s only Test win in Perth. Sourav Ganguly brought the charge, Tendulkar stirred the imagination, but without fanfare Dravid became the backbone of Indian cricket Batsmen like Dravid don’t bring a song to a spectator’s heart; they can sometimes even be tedious to watch (though Dravid was a beautiful batsman in his own right). But they are the kind whose presence every team is grateful for. The true indications of Dravid’s greatness came when batting called for more than driving on the up, when the ball curled in the air and fizzed off the pitch, and when survival became an end in itself. To India’s enormous fortune, when a situation called for a batsman to stand up and be counted, Dravid was there. Almost always.
Some ar e bor n to gr eatness. Rahul Dravid acquired it. In some ways that is the gr eater achievement. Sambit Bal is the editor of ESPNcricinfo
Dravid scored six Test hundreds in England. Only one Indian has scored more Test centuries in an overseas country Sunil Gavaskar, who has seven in the West Indies.
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The grit to be great SANJAY MANJREKAR
W
hen Sunil Gavaskar became the first to 10,000 Test runs, there were celebrations in India. It was a long-awaited moment; ever since his phenomenal debut series in the West Indies in 1971, Gavaskar had looked likely to overhaul the mark. As for Sachin Tendulkar, so immense is his ability that when he reached the heights he did, it was taken for granted. That his fans still feel disappointed with him, after all that he has achieved, shows that for them he is no less than god. With Dravid, every run he got in Tests after 3000 seemed an over-achievement. And I say this in a positive sense. Early in his career he looked a player with the kind of talent that, if combined with hard work, could get him into the Indian side. He always looked a Test prospect but not a prodigy who promised greatness. As it turned out, Dravid worked very hard, and not only did he play for India, he also got himself 13,000 runs at an average of over 52 in 164 Tests. That is a great achievement. And in a team sport like cricket, Dravid is an inspiration for young players, who sometimes feel inferior to a fellow player blessed with considerable natural talent. Dravid’s career average is just a shade below Tendulkar’s. That just might renew belief in virtues that youngsters are given to finding old-fashioned these days: a sound technique and a strong mind. I believe Dravid can be a more realistic batting role model for young Indian batsmen than a Tendulkar, a Sehwag or a VVS Laxman, for Dravid is the least gifted on that list. While Tendulkar is a prodigious, rare talent, Dravid’s basic talent can be found in many, but what he has made of it is the rare, almost unbelievable, Dravid story. Dravid now stands on equal footing with the two great entities of Indian cricket, Gavaskar and Tendulkar. He has tried to keep himself away from comparisons, but it is inevitable now that he will be viewed alongside these two. It is an interesting exercise. Gavaskar was a classy defensive batsman, who courageously took on the bowling giants of the 1970s and ‘80s, when most other Indian batsmen walked to the pitch feeling inferior. Not only did Gavaskardefy all those bowlers, he eventually mastered them. He wasn’t as gifted as Tendulkar is, so he needed to draw on reserves of will, mental strength, and a good defensive game. Gavaskar would typically take the heat for four hours or more before he felt he could dominate the bowlers, in the final session. He respected his opponents but, unlike some of his Indian contemporaries, he never considered himself weaker than them. Gavaskar played at a time when the bowling attacks of most teams around the world were formidable. These days most bowlers focus on containment, but in the ‘70s and ‘80s “get ‘em out” was the mantra. Back then all those fine bowlers tried everything possible to get Gavaskar out. Today most bowlers are looking to “bowl in the right areas”. This method came into fashion when the batsmen began to attack more: it made sense to keep the ball just outside the off stump and let the batsman make a mistake. Glenn McGrath’s success with this method helped it gain popularity. It is
against just this sort of bowling that Dravid, a good defensive batsman with great patience, has flourished. After Gavaskar, whose exploits proved to the next generation of players that Indians could be batting masters of the world, arrived Tendulkar. He clearly stands above Gavaskar and Dravid in terms of sheer batting ability. He also has a disciplined cricket mind that has never allowed his aggressive batting to breed arrogance. It took Tendulkar two seasons to test the waters at the international level before proceeding to dominate the game like no Indian had done before. Dravid was for tunate in a sense that when he arr ived in 1996, Tendulkar was alr eady a phenomenon. Like all batsmen of his time, Dravid had accepted that Tendulkar was the best and all he co uld do was fight for second place. That helped him focus on his own game and avoid lo oking at it in compariso n to Tendulkar’s. However, if Dravid had played in the ‘70s and ‘80s, life would have been easier for him. Those were times when leaving a ball got nods of approval and admiration from spectators. Dravid played the bulk of his cricket in an era when defensive batting was considered almost a handicap. It is rare to see a defensive batsman come through the modern system. Not to say that Dravid was all defensive, though. He had one shot that is uncommon in a defensive Indian batsman: the pull. It is a super b instinctive stro ke against fast bowling, and it is a stroke he had from the outset; a shot that bailed him o ut of many tight situations in Tests. Gavaskar was a great defensive batsman who took on the best at their best and won. Tendulkar was blessed with outrageous talent that he never took for granted. Dravid perhaps had the strongest mind among the three, the largest mental reserves. Gavaskar did have mental strength but he had occasional indiscretions, which gave you cause to think that the great man was not really tuned in that day, that he had not yet recovered from the last mammoth effort, perhaps. He also took one-day cricket lightly, so as to reserve his best for Test matches. In Dravid’s batting, on the other hand, you saw the same intensity in every international innings he played. When his place in the one-day team came up for scrutiny early in the 2000s, it was a difficult period for Dravid because he wasn’t very good at the shorter form of the game at the time. He was lucky to have Sourav Ganguly as captain. Ganguly wanted someone sensible and dependable, like Dravid, alongside him. Dravid’s transition from then on as a batsman, and especially as a valuable one-day batsman, was inspiring. His progress in this period gave us our first insights into his great mind. I must confess, Dravid’s attitude at the start of his career concerned me. As young cricketers we were often reminded to not think too much – and sometimes reprimanded by our coaches and senior team-mates for doing so. Being a thinker in cricket, it is argued, makes you complicate a game that is played best when it is kept simple. I thought Dravid was doing precisely that: thinking too much about his game, his flaws and so on. I once saw him shadow-play a false shot that had got him out. No problem with that, everyone does it. Just that Dravid was rehearsing the shot at a dinner table in a restaurant! This trait made me wonder whether this man, who we all knew by then was going to be the next No. 3 for India, was going to over -think his game and thro w it all away. He reminded me a bit of myself. Somewhere down the line, much to everyone’s relief, I think Dravid managed to strike the right balance. He seemed to tone down the obsession over his game and his technique, and started
obsessing over success instead. Perhaps he looked a lot more studious and intense on television to us than he actually is out there. Life cannot have been easy for a defensive batsman in this age, when saving runs rather than taking wickets is the gener al approach o f teams. A defensive batsman’s for te is his ability to defend the go od balls and hit the loose ones for four. But with bowlers often looking to curb batsmen by setting defensive fields, batting becomes a bit of a struggle for players like Dravid. It is a struggle he was content with, though. He did not commit the folly o f being embarrassed about grinding when everyone around him was attacking and bringing the crowd to their feet. He was quite happy batting on 20 when his partner had raced to 60 in the same time. Once he got past 50, he sometimes seemed to get into this “mental fr eeze” state, where it did not matter to him if he was stuck on 80 or 90 for an hour; he resisted the temptation to do anything different to quickly get to the next stage of the innings. It is a temptation that many defensive batsmen succumb to after hours at the crease. When the patience starts to wear, you think of hitting over the infield, for example, to get a hundred. Dravid knew this was something Sehwag could get away with, not him. That Dravid has played more innings that have mattered for the team is not a coincidence. It’s the kind of per son that he is, the kind a schoo l teacher will give ten out of ten to in an assessment: the sort of perfect role model that the Indian middle-class family value system often throws up. Those middleclass values ar e, I believe, India’s greatest strength, and Dravid is amo ng the finest illustrations o f that fact. Former India batsman Sanjay Manjrekar is a cricket commentator and presenter on TV. A version of this article was ublished in Cricinfo Magazine in 2006
Dravid bowled 20 overs in his Test career, and took one wicket for 39 runs: that of West Indies wicketkeeper Ridley Jacobs, in the Antigua Test in 2002.
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A cricketer most evolved AAKASH CHOPRA
I
still fondly recall that brisk summer evening in Australia in early 2004. We had levelled a series for the first time in a long time in that country. Rahul Dravid, a senior team-mate and my hero, sat next to me in a rather cheery dressing room, and I hesitantly spoke to him about my batting, hoping to get his two cents. As always, he was eager to help. Besides the many things that I picked up from him that day, what struck me was his ho nesty and humility – which I believe are the first steps towards g reatness. Dravid, in his classic self-effacing way, confessed to being, for the most part, an on-side player. The bowlers had come to know of his strengths and had stopped feeding him on his legs. He had to find another way to score runs, he said. Which was how he became one of cricket’s outstanding offside batsmen. That was an overwhelming revelation for me: what seemed like second nature to Dravid had been, in fact, practised and perfected. Just a few days ago he had stunned everyone with his stupendous double-century in Adelaide, an innings punctuated with an array of breathtaking cover drives, piercing the smallest gaps with surgical precision. How could one believe that his impeccable off-side play didn’t come naturally to him? It was only my second series for India, but Dravid had already become my go-to man, my mentor, for queries to do with technique and temperament. His confession had been in response to my concern about my inability to sco re big r uns despite getting go od starts. He didn’t have to expose chinks in his armour when he answered, but he did. Years later that chat with Dravid made me go back and search for videos of him batting early in his career. I wanted to know if the confession had just been an attempt to pep me up. What I found made me r espect Dravid, the man and the batsman, more. When he started out, Dravid used to crouch a lot more in his stance, with his head falling over a bit towards the off side. His bat, coming from the direction of gully, forced him to make a huge loop at the top of the backlift. Both the backlift and the falling head allowed him to punish anything that was even marginally on his legs. His wide backlift also made him a good cutter of the ball, provided there was width on offer. On the flip side, it meant fewer front-foot strokes on the off side. In fact, mid-off was rarely brought into play. Dravid said that because he grew up playing on jute matting wickets, he became a good back-foot player and also strong on the legs, for the bounce allowed him to work balls, even those pitched within the stumps, towards the on side. He was a predominantly bottom-hand player, he said. The knowledge of where his off stump was, coupled with his immense patience, ensured Dravid continued to score bucketfuls of runs in Test cricket, in spite of the bowlers finding him out. But though the runs were coming, they were not coming as briskly as he would have liked. He had to stay
longer at the crease to accumulate his runs, and that eventually cost him his place in the ODI team. He needed to find ways to o pen up his o ff-side play. That’s why he chose to not get behind the line o f the ball at all times, and also started to use his top hand a lo t more. An ardent follower of the Gavaskar school of batting, Dravid would, when he started out, go back and acro ss before the ball was bowled, and then further across to get behind the line of the ball. While this method worked well in Test cricket, it needed some tinkering with in the shorter format. So instead of going back and across, he preferred going back and back, to ensure he stayed beside the ball more often, which allowed him to free his arms while playing through the off. These tweaks were successful and Dravid went on to play his finest cricket in that period. That was not the end of it, though. When you think you have mastered your biggest shortcoming and can breathe easy, something else that is unwanted creeps into your system. While the back-andback trigger mo vement wor ked really well for Dravid, his front foot started going a bit too far across in the process. The movement across the stumps allows you to cover the swing a little better, but it also blurs your judgement of lines, with regard to deciding which deliveries to play and which to leave alone. Mitchell Johnson, with his line that goes across the right-hander, forced Dravid to play at deliveries he would have left alone if his front foot had not gone so far across. And uncharacteristically, Dravid got out fishing outside the off stump on more than a few occasions. Once again, the challenge was to find a solution to a technical glitch. Dravid’s answer was to completely eliminate the trigger movement and stay perfectly still till the bowler r eleased the ball. That may sound like a simple adjustment, but a batsman will tell you that it is perhaps the toughest one to make. Even though the movement occurs before the ball is bowled, and is only a few centimetres, it’s as important as the movement after the ball is bowled. The trigger movement sets the body in motion and allows it to get into the right positions to meet the ball. Eliminating the trigger movement is sort of like engaging fifth gear right after turning on the ignition in a car. And the catch is that it will not work if you are constantly thinking about not moving. The only thing you should be thinking about while standing is your response to the delivery. It must have taken hundreds of hours of practice to get it into his system, so as to make it absolutely seamless; Dravid went through the grind. Nothing great was ever accomplished without passion. He went on to have the best Test series of his career in England in 2011, where he not only got runs but was extremely fluent in getting them. Yet the adjustment he had made meant he didn’t have a second line of defence – so if he was beaten, he was likely to get bowled, not struck on the pad. And that was what happened in Australia. Dravid had been aware of the risks involved, but it was a gamble he had been ready to take. There was a hullabaloo about Dravid’s dismissals in Australia – as if being bowled was dishonourable. Being dismissed essentially means being beaten by a bowler. What difference does it make if one is bowled, lbw or caught behind? Knowing Dravid, if he had decided to play on, he would have found ways, yet again, to address the slip. For him, nothing was unachievable. Perhaps that is what made him the most evolved cricketer of this era. Change didn’t mean only survival for him; it also meant the maturity to create endlessly. His desire for growth was intense enough to work on both conscious and unconscious levels: while he intentionally worked on his
trigger movement and playing beside the line, things like his stance – which was more upright in the latter half of his career – and the straighter descent of the bat happened almost automatically over the period. In cricket, as in life, it is not the most talented who survive, nor the most intelligent, but the ones who are most responsive to change. Dravid’s career was an eternal quest to get better. Everything he did was to, as he puts it best, “deliver the bat at the right time”. Former India opener Aakash of Out of the Blue , an account of Ra jasthan’s 2010-11 2010-11 Ranji Trophy victory. Aakash Chopra is the author of Out This article was first published on March 19, 2012 on ESPNcricinfo
Dravid o pened the innings innings only 23 times in Tests Tests,, but he s cored four centuries in those innings. innings. Only six Indian openers have scored sco red more mo re hundreds: Sunil Gavaskar, Virender Virender Sehwag, Gautam Gambhir, Navjot Sidhu, Wasim Wasim Jaffer and Vinoo Vinoo Mankad.
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A fascinating captain and the job j ob he fell fell out of love with SIDHARTH MONGA
R ahul Dravid became the best batsman, wicketkeeper, short leg, silly point and slip he could
become. It is a fairly prosaic, unglamorous thing to say of a cricketer, but it is a difficult achievement to pull off. To use every bit of talent and time; to be in the right physical, psychological and emotional emotio nal state state to do so. As a player, Dravid Dr avid did just that. that. Dravid the captain was a different story; more fascinating and contradictory too. He brought more natural talent and flair to captaincy than he did to batting, yet it can be argued Dravid didn’t become the best captain captain he could co uld have been. Having r ecently ecently become becom e a father when he too too k over captaincy captaincy full time, he strove to look at cricket as just a sport, not more, which should in part explain the sense of adventure he brought to captaincy – he hated losing, didn’t fear it. Yet so careworn had he become by the end of it all that he uncharacteristically sat on a series lead in his last Test in charge. No followon, despite a 319-run lead against ag ainst England England at The Oval, no push fo r a win. Dravid brought dynamism to India’s ODI cricket, shaking up a team in flux, defending small totals with attacking fields, refusing formulaic captaincy, yet the lasting memory of him as ODI captain r emains that March ar ch afternoon afterno on in the the West West Indies Indies when India India were knocked kno cked out in the first r ound of o f the World Cup. Dravid knew that in India a captain, a team, are always judged by how they do in World Cups. It was as if in those three matches in Trinidad, all the good work of the previous years had been undone. He didn’t quit immediately, but by the end of the England tour later that year, he was a spent man. The tension that the clashes between the coach, Greg Chappell, and some Indian players – both parties equally headstrong – brought, the expectations, the intensity, they all consumed him. One fine day in 2007 he let go. He had stopped stopped enjoying enjo ying it. That, though, wasn’t the case when Dravid was first made the full-time captain, in late 2005. Don’t get it wrong: he surely enjoys his batting, but during some of Dravid’s best efforts with the bat you could imagine him gritting his teeth and going through an unpleasant experience others had shirked. Captaincy Captaincy,, you co uld see, he enjoyed. Small tricks o n the field, big plans o ff it. He He had acumen, he had vision, and most importantly, as he said in an interview in January 2006, the will to “keep the game moving”. Naturally intelligent, a balanced individual, a fan of Mark Taylor’s captaincy, Dravid was arguably India’s most tactically proficient and aggressive on-field captain. There was something delightfully unpredictable about India under him. In November 2003, standing in as captain, Dravid opened an ODI innings with a spinner. In the famous two-and-a-half-day Test in Mumbai in 2004-05, standing in again, he introduced Murali Kartik ahead of Anil Kumble, while defending just 106. In Multan he declared with Sachin Tendulkar on 194 because it made cricketing sense to him that the Pakistan opener s be given a thor ough oug h examination befor e stumps; it was a flat pitch, pitch, and and India India would need time time to for ce a result. result.
When he got the reins full-time, he left a Dravid imprint on the team. Before his first Test as fulltime captain, he tried to make team meetings more interactive, getting senior players to speak about some of their experiences. Soon he took India to Pakistan, and on a flat pitch he played with five bowlers. If a man could bring this edge to India-Pakistan Tests, long infamous for the teams’ fear of losing to the arch enemy, and thus for drab cricket, that man could be dangerous with the right bowlers to back him up. Three Tests later he played five bowlers, against England in Mohali, dropping his good friend and the player of the best innings ever played in Tests, VVS Laxman. Under Dravid, India began to focus on bowlers, under him India won their first Test in South Africa, their first series in the West Indies since 1971, and their first in England since 1986. The salesmen often credit the IPL for India’s big chases in ODIs of late, but back in the days of two formats, 14 of India’s record 17 consecutive successful chases came under Dravid. However, setting fields, picking XIs, managing bowling changes, pushing for wins, staying aggressive, keeping the game moving forward, is just one part of the job – especially in India. The assumption that everybody who has made it to the India team will respect everybody else, will do his best to win matches, will not have differences with team-mates, that a captain will not have to go out of his way to maintain harmony among a group of individuals with the same goals, is as idyllic as it is adult. An India captain has to understand various equations in a side, has to, at times, bring himself down to the level of intellect of the other or raise his own. He also has to deal, fight, argue and work with the selectors, who have to balance the interests of their zones with national ones. It is near impossible impo ssible fo r an India India captain to to stay apolitical. Equally a thick thick skin is a must. During Dravid’s time, the need for such a leader soon arose. All it took was an outsider, another complex personality, the domineering and outspoken coach, Chappell, trying to bring his ideas to India. India. It It was was ar guably the mo st tumultuous tumultuous and divisive per iod in Indian cricket cri cket.. It It was also the dirtiest time. In these these cases, who is r ight and who is wr ong is often o ften inconsequential. inconsequential. Was Was Chappell not right ri ght in suggesting that Virender Sehwag and Zaheer Khan get fit when he did? Was Chappell not right in suggesting that India have an eye on the future? At the same time, were the players lying when they say that Chappell created an atmosphere of insecurity, fear, humiliation and mistrust in the dressing r oom? oo m? The truth will will never come out even even if every par ty involved writes writes books. The only absolute truth is that the loss was that of the Indian cricket team – Dravid’s team. His vision was torn apart, his achievements as captain forgotten. For all popular purposes, he was now ust Chappell’s puppet – a notion lacking respect, and given strength by Sourav Ganguly’s comments in 2011 that Dravid didn’t have the guts to stand up to Chappell. The fact, though, was that even Dravid wanted wanted fitter fitter cricketers cr icketers who were no t stagnating, stagnating, but per perhaps haps he couldn’t contro l the per per sonality flaws of everyone else involved. It is a measure of Dravid the person that even when Chappell was being written off by almost everyone, Dravid did not dissociate himself from the former coach. He still talked of those days using the pronoun pro noun “we”. And And he admitted admitted things co uld have been done do ne differ ently, ently, that perhaps personalities per sonalities could have been handled differently. “I think when you look back at any stage of your career, there are things you could have done differently, and that captaincy period is no different,” he said. “In terms of intention, of what we were trying to achieve, I have no doubt in my mind that it was on the right path. Sure, we made mistakes, sure, there were things that we did right, and maybe some of the results didn’t show up right away. They did show up later on, but that’s just the way it is.” And so cricket ceased being just sport. It became something bigger that consumed everything: the
administrator s, the players, the perfor mances, the fans, the media. One party manoeuvred one half, the other took the r emaining two quarters. The whole nation was divided. Caught between all this was the captain, hoping desperately for results in the Wor ld Cup, because ultimately only that would matter in India come Judgement Day. Shrewder man-managers, less intense people, might have done better. During those days Dravid was very much the gr eat tactician accidentally captaining the wrong side, a team he didn’t know at all. Everything was draining; daily activities he used to look forward to earlier were now chores. External factors began to matter much more. He admitted there were days when he woke up not looking forward to captaining India. This was during the England tour, where he settled for a 1-0 series win. That let on in no uncertain terms that he was afraid of losing, of what people might say if he lost, through some miracle of the order of Headingley 1981, in an attempt to add to India’s meagre five wins in England. Dravid the captain’s goose, though, was cooked months before, on that March afternoon in Trinidad. It was the most poignant sight of his career. Munaf Patel has just become the last man dismissed, with India 69 short of Sri Lanka’s 254, and thus out of the tournament, played on slow and low pitches ideally suited to India’s style of play. Dravid has been chewing his nails, with Dinesh Karthik and Anil Kumble sitting next to him, and Sachin Tendulkar and Virender Sehwag in the row behind. Now he gets up, runs his left hand across his eye. Is it a tear he is trying to hide? It’s like something has left him. Kumble consoles him. It is clear, though, that trying to be the best captain he could be is no t as easy as being the best cricketer he co uld be. Sidharth Monga is an assistant editor at ESPNcricinfo
Dravid scored 860 runs in World Cups at an average of 61.42. Among bats men who scored at least 750 World Cup runs only Viv Richards has a better average (1013 runs at 63.31).
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‘The best batting happens when you are batting in the present’ INTERVIEW BY SAMBIT BAL
December 2003
T ill Adelaide 2003, most epic performances by Indian batsmen on foreign soil had either been in
vain or, at most, had helped salvage a draw. Rahul Dravid’s vigil in both innings of that Test marked a watershed moment. His double-hundred in the first saved India from catastrophe, and after an unexpected burst from Ajit Agarkar set the stage, Dravid made sure India got over the ropes. This interview was conducted a few days later, in his hotel room in sleepy Hobart. Given that he has always been a man of method, I was keen to explore the processes of batting, unique to every batsman, with him. His press conferences can often be dull because he chooses to play safe, but his thoughtfulness and power of articulation make him a wonderful interviewee.
Do you think you’re at the peak of your game at the moment? I’d like to believe not. Let’s put it this way: I’m batting better than I have ever batted before, but I would like to believe that I can get better. I have batted well in the last couple of years, but never have I felt that this is it and that this is the best I can do. You’ve hardly had a bad series since that big hundred against Australia in Kolkata. Can you pinpoint any aspect of your game that you feel has improved? I can’t pinpoint any one thing, because there isn’t any one thing I have done differently. It is a combination of things. It is the confidence of doing well consistently, and the maturity gathered over the years. With experience you learn to trust your game more than you did as a youngster. Also, I think I am getting into better positions while playing – the body position, the head position, the balance, and certainly I am in a better state of mind. Let’s put it another way: is there any weakness that you have managed to eliminate? I have looked at all areas of my game and worked hard on all of them. I have really worked on my physical fitness. I think it’s a question of everything coming together. It is generally accepted that the best years for a batsman are around the age of 30. I have a few years of experience at international level now, so it all adds up. You certainly seem more positive about your strokeplay. I am more positive because I am more confident, I am getting runs, I am batting better, I am getting into better positions. It’s not that I have made a conscious decision to g o o ut and play mor e strokes. Your last truly bad series was in Australia [1999-00]. Since then you have not really failed in series anywhere. Even in New Zealand [2002-03], you scored some runs. Actually, I thought I was playing quite well in New Zealand. The 70 that I got in the first Test I rate quite highly among all my knocks. The conditions were really tough. Things didn’t go well after that but I got a 39 in the second Test and I was batting quite well when I got out to a rank bad ball. What were the lessons from that bad series in Australia?
That whole phase was quite tough for me. Three Tests against Australia and then hardly a break before we played two Tests against South Africa at home. I had more doubts about my game in that period than I’ve ever done. What really helped were my six months of county cricket in England. It came at the right time because I needed to get away, to a new environment where I could just relax and be myself and play cricket and enjoy it. I was on my own, and I learned things about myself and my game.
What do you think really went wrong in Australia on that tour? Did you, like Sanjay Manjrekar before you, who was also a good technician, fail because you got bogged down? I was out of form. No two ways about it. I was not batting well. I was not getting into goo d positions. I got out to balls that I had lost track of. I didn’t feel confident. Things got better as the tour went on, and I got a few runs in the one-dayers. But in the Test matches I just didn’t bat well. Let’s just say that I wasn’t good enough and they were too good for me. I didn’t fail last time because I played fewer shots, because most times I wasn’t batting long enough. In Adelaide, I got a 35, which wasn’t a bad start, and perhaps if I had converted that into a 70 or 80, things would have been different. But after that, I was hardly spending time in the cr ease. Is there anything you feel you are doing better now? Any particular stroke that you think you are playing better? I think I’m driving a little better on the off side. When I look at some of my old videos I realise that I was perhaps driving much less then. I was always a good cutter; it’s a shot I have always played well, especially abroad. But I am getting more for ward now, and my fro nt-foot driving is mo re sure. It’s not very natural for an Indian player to be a good cutter. You pull quite well too. That’s because I played a lot of cricket on matting wickets. That really helped develop my back-foot game. With the kind of bounce you get on matting, you need to cut and pull well. And I was quite conscious thatI needed to play these shots well if I was ever picked for the national side. I remember people like [Javagal] Srinath telling me that if I wanted to do well abroad, I had to cut and pull well. So I made a conscious effort to develop these two shots. Sometimes while playing in domestic cricket, it’s easy to lose these shots, because on those wickets you don’t really need them. They are ust not an option. So you learn other skills to score runs. But I always kept working on them because I knew I would need them abroad. People don’t give you too many balls to drive in international cricket. For a while you were not an automatic choice for the one-day team. You were dropped on a few occasions too. Did this change your approach to batting? I was conscious of the fact that I needed to improve if I wanted to come back into the one-day team. I knew I had certain strengths that were useful to the team, but I knew I had to get better. Being left out of the team is not a nice feeling. I went back and worked on certain areas of my one-day game, like playing with soft hands, trying out a few new strokes. I had to look hard at which areas needed work. Maybe earlier I used to go into one-day games thinking of batting a lot of overs. One-day cricket has changed a bit. Sides now bat deep and a lot mor e runs are scor ed. I had to adjust my thought pro cesses to that. Experience teaches you things; it teaches you to think differently and helps you play differently. You obviously place a lot of importance on thinking about your game? Oh, yes. The mind does help sharpen your skills. When you are in the right frame of mind, a lot of things fall into place. I can’t describe what the right frame of mind is, it varies from situation to
situation, fr om player to player. What might make me a little nervous and a little tense might not make another player nervous. It is a process of self-discovery.
How do you prepare for a match? I try to have as many nets as possible in the last couple of days before the match. When I feel comfortable with my game, I stop. Then I start thinking about the match. I look at the wicket. I try to analyse the kind of bowlers I will be playing, their strengths and weaknesses. I replay in my mind the memories of my last encounter with them. I look at videos if they’re available. If a bowler got me out the last time, I try to think about how I got out, what mistake I committed. And I do my best to be in a relaxed state of mind, because that’s when I play at my best. I try to slow things down a couple of days before the game. I have long lunches, do things in an unhurried way. The morning of the match, I always get up a couple of hours before we have to get to the ground, so that I have plenty of time to get ready. I take my time to have a bath, wear my clothes, eat breakfast. I never rush things, and that sort of sets up my mood for the rest of the day. Then, if the facilities permit, I have a net at the ground. I try to be flexible about my routine. If you have a set routine, if you say, “I must do this and this”, then it can be counter-productive, because sometimes you may not have facilities at the ground. At some grounds the practice pitches are so bad that it can actually harm yo ur co nfidence to bat on them. The facilities in Australia are very goo d, so I might have a net. It also depends on weather; if it’s hot and sweaty, maybe I will skip it, because it takes too much energy.
Do you do visualisation? A little bit. There is always a bat in the dressing room. I hold the bat in my hands and go through some of the shots I might play. Before sleeping the previous night I spend 15 minutes running through the next day and how I would like it to pan out for me, structuring my thoughts. What do you do while waiting for your turn to bat? I try to be relaxed. I never put any pressur e on myself. I watch the game. I try to go out in the light and watch. I look at field settings, the bounce, the bowling changes. I think about the game but I am quite relaxed. I might have a cup of tea and talk to someone sitting next to me. If it’s a long partnership, I walk around, do a bit of stretching to get the blood circulation going. But I don’t get into the game. I like to conserve my mental energies for batting in the middle. Describe what happens when you walk out to the middle. A wicket has just fallen, perhaps to a great ball, and you are making your way out. I like to get in quite quickly, it gets my legs moving. You do feel nervous. You feel the butterflies in the stomach every time you walk out to bat, regardless of whether you have played 100 Tests or ten. You need that bit of nervous energy; it tells you that you are switched on. I would worry if I didn’t feel it. I have a look at the wicket, then have a little conversation with the other batsman, which is quite important because it makes you feel that you ar e not alone o ut there. What kind of first ball do you like to receive? Are you happier leaving it, or do you like it hitting the middle of your bat? I have thought about this. All that I am thinking at that moment is that I want to be there for the second ball. Of course, I would love a full toss on leg stump. It’s always nice to feel the ball in the middle of the bat, but at the beginning of an innings it’s good to be able to leave as many balls as possible. It gives you a sense of where your off stump is. It gives you the confidence that you won’t be forced to play a lo t of balls that you don’t have to play
How you do you plan an innings? I have had a look at the wicket earlier, so I kind of know my stroke options. I know the things that I should not do. I also have chats with other batsmen in the team to see if their reading of the wicket matches mine. For instance, on the first morning of a Test match, cover-driving is not always the best option, because the ball is doing a bit. So I might think that I’ll try to hang on till tea maybe, before I use that shot. Of course, if I get a half-volley, I will drive it. But it is not a percentage shot in the morning. You need to be flexible. You might think the pitch will behave in a certain way, and it can turn out to be completely differ ent. In India the stroke-making options are very limited. It’s very difficult to generate power on the square-of-the-wicket strokes. Places like Australia, England and South Africa really give you a lot of freedom with your strokeplay; once you are set, you can really play all your shots.
While batting, are you always looking at the ball? I mean not only from the bowler’s hand but also tracking it from the wicketkeeper’s gloves? I do that sometimes. Particularly if I am struggling with my concentration or if I want to take my focus away fro m negative thoughts. I might say, I will just watch the ball for the next couple of overs. Sometimes telling yourself to concentrate doesn’t work, so you try to focus on something else. Concentration is one of the strongest aspects of your game. Is that something you’ve always had? Some of it is natural but a lo t comes with practice. I always try to wor k on it in the nets. I always treat nets as a match. It’s very rarely that I would have a casual net, just to knock a few balls around. I play every ball in the nets like I would in a match. I really hate getting out in the nets. I create the sort of intensity that I would need in a match. That helps my concentration. If I think the conditions will help swing and seam in a match, I will try to leave as much as I can outside the off stump in the nets. Driving and edging in the nets is not okay with me. Can you describe how it is facing a ball in the middle? Sachin Tendulkar once said that the ideal mental condition is to have a blank mind. It is possible to blank your mind. That’s the ideal situation, and that’s the challenge. If you can blank the mind, suspend your thoughts and just watch the ball and react to it without cluttering your thinking, that’s the ideal situation. It happens at times, when you are playing well, you are confident… but it comes and goes. During a long innings, you have patches of 30 or 40 minutes when you think that you had that. It’s the closest you feel to being in the zone. How does being in the zone affect your batting? To start with, you pick up the line and length of the ball more clearly, and much earlier. And then you are able to respond to each ball purely on its merit. The best batting happens when you are batting in the present. It’s about controlling the controllables. You can’t control the last ball or the next ball, but if you can be fully present to play the ball at hand, bring all your mind, your concentration, to respond to that ball, then that’s it. You are not thinking about the state of the match, the condition of the pitch or the previous ball. Your mind, energ y, hands and eyes are r esponding only to that moment. It’s the closest you can come to purity; it’s a special feeling. How can you create this state? You can’t. If you could, you would always be in that state, because you know how it feels. It’s something you aspire to, but you can’t create it consciously, and sometimes you even do well without it. Sometimes you can have your fears and your doubts and still come away scoring runs. But you
can’t reach that state if you are tired. If you are physically exhausted, it’s difficult to focus your mind. That’s why physical fitness is so important. The fitter you are, the greater your chances of reaching that condition.
What goes t hrough your mind when you benefit from a dropped catch? You’r e glad to still be there. But you try to put it out of your mind and focus on the next ball. And when you get hit? It makes me more determined. It’s like a wake-up call. I’ve been hit badly only a couple of times, and it has made me fight and concentrate harder. It happened in the West Indies [2001-02], and the situation demanded that I stayed in. But you know, I really admire the cricketers who played fast bowling without helmets. To play that quality of fast bowling without protection is a very special thing. I can never imagine playing fast bowling without a helmet because I grew up playing with helmets, and how I would have reacted without a helmet, I don’t know. But batsmen of that era – even the other equipment wasn’t good then – I have huge respect for them.
What was the st ate of your mind on t he morning of the last day at Adelaide? We had a quiet confidence. We knew we had a great chance to win and we knew we could do it. Of cour se, we were a bit nervo us, and it was natural. We had lost a lot of matches we should have won in the past. I was quite determined to not let that happen again. It’s a sick feeling to think that you could have won. We have worked so hard as a team, all of us, John [Wright], Andrew [Leipus], Gr eg [King], so we had to win. Did you tell yourself that you wanted to be there at the end? I told myself in the morning that I needed to do whatever it took, that whatever happened I would try to be there at the end. I had to give it all I had. You tell yourself that all the time, that you always want to be there at the end. It doesn’t always happen. But it happened that day, and it was a special feeling. Has the enormity of the achievement sunk in yet? Are you aware this might be your personal slice of history, that the Adelaide Test might be remembered as Dravid’s Test? The real significance of it can only be judged after a few years. A few months ago I was told I would always be remembered for that 148 at Headingley [in 2002]. I’m not done yet. Only after I am done will I know what my best moment was. Sambit Bal is the editor of ESPNcricinfo. This interview was first published in Wisden Asia Cricket magazine
In the words of his peers
It is not an exaggeration to say that a whole strand of the game a rich vein that runs through the games poetic heart departs the scene with Indias greatest-ever No. 3. Playing T20 cricket wont teach anyone to become the next Rahul Dravid. Ed Smith, A gentleman champion of timeless steel and dignity, page 60
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The rock around whom the rest moved JOHN WRIGHT
L et me begin with a story. In 2000, Kent were playing in Lancashire, and one evening I went out
with Rahul for a meal. It was his first year as a county pro and the main difficulty he seemed to be having in adjusting to England was this business of driving from city to city. We drove into town but there weren’t many parking spaces to be found. The only empty spots we could see were in a parking permit zone. It was late in the evening; who would be bothered, I thought. I told Rahul it was fine if he parked rig ht there. He asked me if I was sure, and since we were both hungr y, I said, “Of course.” We came out of the restaurant after dinner and the car was gone. It had been towed away and he had to get it out of the lock-up. He is, of course, a very calm and smart guy, so right from that stage, I think, he knew never to listen to ever ything I said. Kent was a long experience of matches, meals and car rides, but our paths had crossed much earlier, in 1996, when I first met Sourav and him. I was hugely impressed with both of them. Rahul was a very good player, very sound and correct. Technically he stood out. We had seen the likes of Sachin Tendulkar but not someone like Rahul. You saw that he could play outside India. He looked very good in defence and knew how to put together an innings. I thought this guy was going to be a really great player. He was talented and humble but confident. When I went to Kent, I wanted to sign players who either wanted to make it or wanted to use the experience: players who were hungry, not those who wanted to come and get a contract. We were having some problems with our batting and needed an overseas professional to bolster it, while Rahul wanted to experience county cricket, to try to make himself a better player. I knew he would not only produce runs but would be an extremely good influence on our young players, like Robert Key and Ed Smith. It would help them to watch Rahul train. He had a tough year but he met with the expectations people had of him. He was everything Kent needed then. A lot of people ask me what role he had in me getting the India job. I have to say it was all very casual, not orchestrated in any way. I remember telling Sourav and Rahul that if the job came up I’d like to be considered, but it was the board’s decision and was beyond them. What I do know is, Rahul had seen how I coached, so it may have put me in the fr ame. Being India’s first foreign coach and living in the country could sometimes be a lonely job. Sourav and I had very different styles of working, and I think Rahul and I went back a longer way. I don’t remember ever having to calm Rahul down, and he was someone I could always talk to if I needed a hand. If Sourav turned up late and we were about to leave for a tour, Rahul and I would do the press conference. We always knew that. He took over in Pakistan in 2004 when Sourav was injured, and won that first Test in Multan. He made a strong call to declare when Sachin was on 190-odd. I was aware milestones were important, and yes, we had sent a message out to Sachin that he should hurry up in getting to the double. Rahul had known the consequences when he took the decisio n.
He always had wonderful leadership qualities, and since he had never pushed for the captaincy, the dressing-room atmosphere stayed fine. He was also the rock of our batting, the one around whom everything else could move. You had Laxman and Tendulkar, but with Dravid at the crease the dressing room felt very calm. The only thing he used to worry about was his running between the wickets, particularly when he batted with Sourav. There were times I thought that was the only way they would g et him out. It helped me hugely to have Rahul ar ound. Sourav was gr eat as captain – when I loo k back at it now, Sourav brought qualities to the team that were rare – but the issue was that both of us were very emotional people. We were very driven, and Rahul was a real calming influence. It very quickly became the three of us. We used to bounce a lot of things off each other. But Sourav was the leader; we would ar gue and he would do exactly what he liked. Much has been written about Rahul’s game and his personality, and how he managed to remain gr ounded even in the circus of Indian cricket – but that’s fair ly well known, so I’d like to r eveal a part of his nature he managed to keep masked by generally being a good person. He was an absolutely fierce competitor. People forget how ruthless he was out in the middle. You can’t do what he did without having inner resolve. I think it stems fr om his wonderful defensive technique, but I am sur e he also had the confidence in his ability to survive when the bowler was on top. If he decided to defend, there weren’t many ways people co uld get him out. I think Rahul always wanted to be – and turned out to be – o ne of the great batsmen in wor ld cricket and in the history of Indian batting. There were Sunny Gavaskar and Sachin, brilliant players in different ways, and then there was Rahul. It is now beginning to strike me that Rahul was always acutely aware of how many runs he had got and what his record was. We never talked about that, but you don’t get runs if yo u don’t have some goals. I have never seen a mor e dedicated cricketer than Rahul in the nets. He was able to simulate a game situation, not just by going through the motions but by making every ball count. It was like he didn’t want to get out even in the nets. In a situation when he had three or four bowlers going at him, he wanted to compete. He was always testing himself and worked on whatever needed the time, like his technique, or on sorting o ut some kink. One of the things I fo und interesting while watching Rahul play in his late 20s was what he was able to get out of the experience and the opposition. He never made the same mistake twice. He learnt hugely in one-day cricket – which probably was an area he had to wor k at a little bit mor e than others. He had been dropped from the Indian one-day team and then went on to come back and have a very good World Cup. He was a great student of the game and never made the same mistake twice. He had all the shots but he worked hard at turning the strike over, getting the singles, and dropping the ball on the on side, when normally you might put it on the off side. At the start people would try to slow him down, but then he worked out a way so they couldn’t do that. He also pr obably impro ved his ability to loft the ball. For people like him, what you do is far more important than what you say. Kumble, Tendulkar, Laxman and Dravid were very professional. When Sehwag, Yuvraj, Zaheer Mohammad Kaif and Harbhajan came into the team they were all young boys. I think Sourav counselled them emotionally, and they learnt a lot from how Rahul and the others practised. It had a very powerful effect on all of them. Maybe his type of batsman is go ing now. There is pro bably Alastair Cook, if you’r e looking for a
comparison, but few others spring to mind. Rahul is the most obvious example of what you want in a defensive No. 3. He was called “Jam” because his father wor ked for a jam company, but I felt a better name for him was “gem”. People trusted him. John Wright, India’s coach between 2000 and 2005, spoke to ESPNcricinfo senior editor Sharda Ugra
Dravid became the second-oldest batsman to score over 1000 Test runs in a calendar year when he made 1145 runs in 2011, when almost 39. Don Bradman had scored 1025 runs in 1948 when he was nearly 40.
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A gentleman champion of timeless steel and dignity ED SMITH
W hen Rahul Dravid walked into the dressing room of the St Lawrence ground in Canterbury on a
cold spring morning, you could tell he was different from all the others. He did not swagger with cockiness or bristle with macho competitiveness. He went quietly round the room, shaking the hand of every Kent player – greeting everyone the same, from the captain to the most junior. It was not the mannered behaviour of a seasoned overseas professional; it was the natural courtesy of a real gentleman. We met a special human being first, an international cricketer second. The cricketer was pretty good, too. Dravid joined Kent for the 2000 season, and I spent much of it at No. 4, coming in one after Dravid (not that he was the departing batsman very often). That meant I had some wonderful opportunities to bat alongside the player who became the highest-scoring No. 3 of all time. What did I learn? I learnt that real toughness takes many different forms. Dravid could appear shy and slightly vulnerable off the pitch; in the middle, you sensed a depth of resilience. Many overseas players liked to set themselves apart from the county pros – as though they had to swear more loudly and clap their hands more violently to prove that international cricketers were tougher than the rest. Not Dravid. He never paraded his toughness. It emerged between the lines of his performances. Instead, he always talked about learning, about gathering new experiences – as though his cricketing education wasn’t complete, as though there were many more strands of his craft to hone. His journey, you could tell, was driven by self-improvement. One word has attached itself to Dravid wherever he has gone: gentleman. The word is often misunderstood. Gentlemanliness is not mere surface charm – the easy lightness of confident sociability. Far from it: the real gentleman doesn’t run around flattering everyone in sight; he makes sure he fulfils his duties and obligations without drawing attention to himself or making a fuss. Gentlemanliness is as much about restraint as it is about appearances. Above all, a gentleman is not only co urteous, he is also constant: always the same, whatever the cir cumstances or the company. In that sense, Dravid is a true gentleman. Where many sportsmen flatter to deceive, Dravid runs deep. He is a man of substance, morally serious and intellectually curious. For all his understatement, he couldn’t fail to convey those qualities to anyone who watched him proper ly. I last bumped into Dravid late in 2011 at a charity dinner at the Sydney Cricket Ground. He was the same as he always has been – warm, self-deprecating, curious about the lives of others. As ever, he made a point of asking about my parents – their health and happiness – although he has never met them. Family and friendship, you sense, are central to his life and his values. In the q&a that followed his speech, one answer got close to the core of his personality. What motivated him still, after all these years and so many runs? Dravid said that as a schoolboy he remembered many kids who had at least as much desire to play professional cricket as he did – they
attended every camp and net session, no matter what the cost or the difficulty of g etting there. But you could tell – from just one ball bowled or one shot played that they simply didn’t have the talent to make it. He knew he was different. “I was given a talent to play cricket,” Dravid explained. “I don’t know why I was given it. But I was. I owe it to all those who wish it had been them to give my best, every day.” What a brilliant inversion of the usual myth told by professional sportsmen: that they had unexceptional talent and made it to the top only because they worked harder. Dravid spoke the truth. Yes, he worked hard. But the hard work was driven by the desire to give full expression to a godgiven talent. On the field, what set Dravid apart was a rare combination of technical excellence, mental toughness and emotional restraint. He was restrained in celebration, just as he was restrained in disappointment – exactly as the true gentleman should be. And yet his emotional self-control coexisted with fierce competitiveness and national pr ide. Dravid single-handedly disproved the absurd argument that tantrums and yobbishness are a sign of “how much you care” or, worse still, “how much you want it”. He was rarely outdone in terms of hunger or passion. And he was never outdone in terms of behaviour or dignity. Those twin aspects of his personality – the dignified human being and the passionate competitor – ran alongside each other, the one never allowed to interfere with the other. He knew where the boundaries were, in life and in cricket. I am an optimist by nature. I do not think that sport is perpetually declining from some mythical go lden age. But sometimes I cannot avoid the sense that a certain type of spor tsman is an increasingly endangered species. I have that feeling now, as Dravid declares his innings closed. No longer will he take guard with that familiar hint of politeness, even deference. No longer will he raise his bat to the crowd as if he is genuinely thanking them for their applause – the bat tilted outwards in acknowledgement of the supporters, not just waved frantically in an orgy of personal celebration. No longer will he stand at first slip, concise and precise in his movements – a cricketer first, an athlete second. No longer will the high Dravid back-swing and meticulous footwork link this generation with the great technicians of the past. It would be nice to argue that no cricketer is irreplaceable, that sport is defined by continuity rather than full stops, that there will soon be another Dravid, another champion cricketer of timeless steel and dignity. But I don’t think there will be. I think Dravid will be remembered as the last in a great tradition o f batsmen whose instincts and temperament were per fectly suited to Test match cricket. It is not an exaggeration to say that a whole strand of the game – a rich vein that runs through the game’s poetic heart – departs the scene with India’s greatest-ever No. 3. Playing T20 cricket won’t teach anyone to become the next Rahul Dravid. In years to come, perhaps too late, we may realise what we have lost: the civility, craft and dignity that Dravid brought to every cr icket match in which he played. Ed Smith is a former England, Middlesex and Kent player and the author, mo st recently, of Luck What It Means and Why It Matters. This article was first published on ESPNcricinfo on March 13, 2012
Dravid took five catches in the Chennai Test against Australia in 1998. Four of the catches were off Anil Kumble, and one off Venkatapathy Raju.
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The eternal student GREG CHAPPELL
M en don’t say these things, but I have a genuine affection fo r Rahul Dravid. What’s not to like about him? He is a nice guy who is genuine, tough, strong, honest, reliable, and very dependable; and one hell of a cricketer to boot. Rahul gave everything he had on the cricket field, and you can’t ask for more than that. He wasn’t prepared to g ive less than that. He was an excellent deputy, in that he gave whole-hearted support without ever thinking he might be better than the incumbent, and when he got the job he was a much better captain than he will ever be credited with. Rahul Dravid is a thinking man’s cricketer. Everything he does on the cricket field and off it is well-considered. He is not prone to making r ash decisions or ill-considered remarks. He became an excellent player because he had thought it through and worked out what he needed to do to succeed. His success did not come by accident and it wasn’t just about hard work. He was an extremely skillful player who never stopped trying to improve himself. If he thought he could get better at something, he analysed what he needed to do and then worked hard at making the improvement. Rahul is an avid r eader, who r eads in the search of knowledge with which to improve himself. He is like a child in that he constantly asks questions and then asks why when you give him an answer. I like that he challenged me to substantiate my arg uments with sound reasoning. I also like that once he was convinced, he could make instant adjustments to his game. I remember one such occasion in a Test match at Feroz Shah Kotla Stadium in Delhi during a series against Sri Lanka. The wicket was not easy to bat on because it was low and slow, and Sri Lanka had a fellow called Muralitharan who could bowl a bit and who was making life difficult for most Indian batsmen. Muralitharan took 7 for 100 in the first innings, in which Sachin Tendulkar made a patient century. Rahul was one of many who had found scoring runs against Muralitharan difficult in the first innings. Over dinner that night, he asked me how I thought he could play him better in the second innings. I said that under the prevailing conditions I thought it was tough to do more than he had done that day. He wouldn’t accept that as an answer and insisted that I do better, so I said that he had to look for scoring o pportunities off every ball, no matter how hard it was. Batting for survival against Murali in those conditions, I said, was not an option. Even if you succeeded in surviving, you wouldn’t make any runs, so the game would be lost anyway. When one thinks of survival, the feet do not move well, which means that scoring opportunities will be missed. This, I said, is a sure way to boost the bowler’s confidence. The best way to build your own confidence and dent that of the bowler is to score off every poor ball he bowls and some of his good
ones. The only way to do that, I said, was to lo ok to make the “danger zone” (the area a metre or so in front of a go od stride for ward) as small as possible by scoring fr om any delivery pitched marginally full there or short of it. Rahul asked me to explain further. I said that it was my opinion that the best way to survive was to be positive in intent. By intending to score runs off ever y ball one would actually give oneself a better chance of defending against the good balls. Rahul became excited by the prospect of batting in the second innings and was quick to ask me to throw some balls to him on the outfield the next mor ning so that he could practise the mindset that we had discussed. That he went out and scor ed a fluent 53 (run out) that day was mor e about his ability to interpret my suggestion than the suggestion itself. In that way, he was eminently coachable. He could take concepts and turn them into action because of his intelligence and a strong belief in his ability. To be prepared to do this in the middle of a Test match too k cour age. It was that sort of courag e that made him the player that he was. The same courage and belief made him a good captain. His propensity to think things through may have meant that he was always going to appear conservative tactically, but going by that would be to underestimate his ability to take calculated risks. Rahul wanted to make India a tougher team. He knew that for that to happen, things had to change. India had won ver y few times when chasing a target in ODIs. This was because they had no plan other than to attack, which could be spectacularly successful o r just as spectacularly not. Rahul knew from his own experience as a player that success did not come by accident, so he sought to change the way India went about their ODI cricket. He knew that partnerships were important when batting and that the best way to slow the opposition run rate down was to take wickets. Early wickets were important, but so were wickets in the middle overs of a one-day game. Up to that point, India had been happy to try to contain with the ball and attack with the bat. Rahul decided to reverse the game plan. He wanted to take wickets regularly, so he identified bowlers who swung the ball, such as Irfan Pathan and Sreesanth, and someone who got bounce, like Munaf Patel. He also wanted a spinner, such as Ramesh Powar, who attacked and took wickets in the middle o vers. With the batting, he wanted partnerships, and good finishers who had poise and power – the likes of MS Dhoni and Yuvraj Singh. More than that, he wanted to use his batting strengths according to situations rather than be tied to a set batting order. On occasions he used Pathan at the top of the batting order to utilise his hitting power while the ball was hard and coming on to the bat. He knew that Pathan found it harder to do that when the ball was soft and the spinners were operating, later in the innings. This approach was far from conservative and was spectacularly successful. To learn how to get better at chasing a target, Rahul kept asking the opposition to bat first, no matter the conditions. Under his leadership, India won nine ODIs in a row against Pakistan and England, and went on to complete a world record of 17 consecutive wins batting second. A similar approach to Test cricket brought about India’s first overseas series victory in the West Indies for 35 years and a first-ever Test victory in South Africa, which could quite easily have been turned into a series win if the team had batted better in the second innings in the final Test in Cape
Town. Sadly the success of the team was not universally enjoyed within the team. Some individuals felt threatened by the new world order and appeared to work against Rahul. Had he been given the same whole-hearted support in the role that he had given others, I think the recent history of Indian cricket may have been very differ ent and he could have gone on to become the most successful Indian captain ever. Former Australia batsman Greg Chappell was India’s coach for much of Rahul Dravid’s tenure as capta in
In an ODI against South Africa in Kochi in 2000, Dravid outbowled Anil Kumble, taking 2 for 43 against Kumbles 0 for 48.
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The master will see you now (and always) SURESH RAINA
W hen I think of Rahul Dravid, apart from all that he achieved in cricket, I think of his simplicity,
discipline, and the way he conducted himself on and off the field.
In all my time with the Indian team I never saw him late for anything – training, team meetings or any group activity. And he gave his complete attention to everything he did, whether it was a team dinner or leading the squad to a social gathering. He took all his responsibilities seriously. As a youngster, I found it easy to chat with him. He was always available and had tips for us about life outside cricket. He always gave equal importance to every player, regardless of whether he played for India or not. And his interest was genuine. Looking at him and listening to him, you understood how he had managed to lead the kind of life he had. And watching him closely, you understood why people loo ked up to him. I always felt motivated when I chatted with him. As captain, his speeches in the dressing room and on the field were simple, but they spurred you to do well. He communicated in a language you understood and he paid attention to every player in the team. I got a duck on my international debut, trapped leg-before by Muttiah Muralitharan. I was terribly disappointed, but Rahul bhai told me I should not let it weigh me down because I had 10-15 years of cricket ahead of me. It was a simple thing to say, but the way he said it made all the difference. It helped me lift my head and believe in myself . This was in 2005. As a young player it was difficult for me, Venugopal Rao and even MS Dhoni to say much during team meetings, but Rahul bhai always made it a point to listen to us and g ave us a lot of confidence through these interactions. That was his other strength: to engage youngsters and let us realise that even if there were no senior players in the team, the younger players were capable of taking over. One of my fondest memories is of Rahul bhai leading India to victory in the Test series in West Indies in 2006. His magnificent fifties in Jamaica can never be forgotten, and I watch videos of those innings, and his Adelaide century, from time to time, as they teach me so much. He tirelessly supported Test cricket and never forgot to point out to us that no matter how much one-day and T20 cricket we played, it was important to perform in the five-day game because the satisfaction of scoring a hundred in a Test match was a completely different feeling. I was really happy when he was the one who gave me my Test cap in 2010 in Sri Lanka. “Welcome to the league,” he said. “You have been outstanding in ODIs and Twenty20. Now this is the real cricket. Just go and play your natural game. I believe in you.” I scored a century in the match, which made Rahul bhai very happy. He told me how pleased he was, and also how lucky I was compared to him, since he had got out on 95 on Test debut at Lord’s.
It was not only in the good times that he put an arm of support around me. During the toughest phase of my career, he stood by me and helped me stay strong. Immediately after the 2007 Wor ld Cup I was dropped and then suffered a knee injur y. I was out of the Indian team for nearly 15 months. I was young, without any support and mentor ing, and I was disappointed and desperate. I travelled to England, where India were on tour, to have John Gloster, the team physio, take a look at my knee. Rahul bhai told me not to hurry back. He suggested that I spend time with my family and not wor ry too much. During this time I was at the National Cricket Academy in Bangalore, and he came for some net sessions ahead of a Test tour. He stressed the importance of fitness and told me to concentrate on proper training and gym sessions. He stayed in touch and texted me every time I did well, like when I was the Man of the Tour nament in the Challenger Trophy. I am probably one of the few people who got his Test and ODI caps from the same person. Just like he did while handing me my Test cap, he said a few interesting things while handing me my ODI one. He said a lot of glamour, fame and money would surround me as an international player but the key thing for me to keep in mind at all times was to never lose my focus on cricket, to be disciplined and remember what I am as a person. A good way to not lose focus, he said, was to never miss optional team training sessions. He never missed them because he could get more time to face the net bowlers, get more quality feedback from the coaches and senior players, because they would have more time to focus on him. Taking my cue from him, I have never missed any optional nets. I believe such inputs come in handy and make a good cricketer. As for insights into my game, Rahul bhai never asked me to change anything. Before the 2011 tour of the West Indies, there were several doubts raised about my technique against the short ball. He understood the pressure I was under and told me it was all in the mind, and that I should just ignore what others said about me. He said the pitches in the Caribbean were some of the toughest to bat on and that he was impressed with my technique. I was leaving the short ball well, he said, and that my back-foo t play was very good, so the only thing I needed to co ntinue doing was to stay positive. As a player Rahul bhai was always focused. He could maintain a clear head for several hours in challenging conditions on all kinds of pitches, in all formats. It is easy to admire him for these virtues but you also wonder how he could manage those levels of concentration. I believe his focus was a result of the simple life he led. He was down to earth, calm, and never had any interest in stuff like cars and bikes. He was not attracted to the glamour attached to a cr icketer ’s life. If you loo ked into his kit bag, it was always clean. He wore simple and elegant clothes. Don’t be fooled by his simplicity, though. He played with a lot of passion and could never swallow defeat easily. When we lost the one-day series in 2006 in the West Indies, he was very angry and said we should have performed better. He attached great importance to the India cap. I remember him taking on Jimmy Anderson after the defeat at Lor d’s in the 2011 one-day ser ies. It was a r ain-affected match, which we lost fro m a winning position. Rahul bhai told Anderson, without mincing any words, that a young Indian team would thrash England when they came to play one-dayers in India. It’s a good thing then that we won the home series 5-0! Rahul bhai was more than a team-mate to me. He introduced me to a yoga teacher at the NCA to
learn visualisation and meditation techniques from. When I used to stand in the slips with him and VVS Laxman, he would ask abo ut my family, about life in the Uttar Pradesh hostel system from which I had graduated, and then move on to talk about dinner plans. His ability to switch on and off was amazing. During the Tests in England in 2011, I was struggling with form, and asked for his opinion. He asked me to relax, took me to a theatre in London, and invited me to share dinners with his family, with whom I now have a very warm relationship. It was good to see this focused cricketer could switch off once he stepped off the field. The Indian dressing room will be a different place without Rahul bhai. His knowledge of the game, his experience of handling pressure, how to calibrate a chase or set a target, his pitch-reading skills – they will all definitely be missed. He was always willing to do things for the team: ready to open, ready to bat at No. 3, ready to keep, ready to captain. He was a responsible man, and through his actions he inspired us to play fr om our hearts and give 100%. Just like Dravid the batsman who never looked like getting out, Dravid the man will always remain a part of my life. India batsman Suresh Raina played 61 internationals alongside Rahul Dravid. Raina spoke to Nagraj Gollapudi, assistant editor at ESPNcricinfo
Shane Warne dismissed Dravid more often than any bowler in Tests eight times in 13 Tests. In all international cricket, Brett Lee leads the way, with 12 dismiss als in 38 matches.
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‘I can’t recall beating him more than one ball in a row’ JASON GILLESPIE
T he game of cricket is the battle between bat and ball. It is about who loses patience first; that
determines the winner. Rahul Dravid was a master at staying patient for long, long per iods of time. He won the battles mor e often. Good bowlers are able to put pressure on a batsman, no matter how goo d, and draw him out of his comfort zone. How tough was Dravid? Dravid was so patient, he made you bowl to him. Because he did not give his wicket away easily, you had to be incr edibly disciplined against him in line and leng th to get the better of him. That was easier said than done. It is easy to assume, like many other fast bowlers might have done, that you could settle into one line against Dravid, as opposed to someone like Virender Sehwag, who can easily distract you with his penchant for strokes. Dravid, being a very disciplined player, was never easy to lure. He had a set way of playing ; he would always wait for a bowler to make a mistake, unlike Sehwag, who tries to take it to the bowler. Dravid complemented the more aggressive batsmen in the Indian batting line-up perfectly. He brought stability to their batting order, which was full of stroke-makers like Sachin Tendulkar, Sehwag, VVS Laxman and Sourav Ganguly. He was a rock-solid player, someone who valued his wicket, someone against whom you knew you were in for a real hard task. He could judge whether to play or leave the ball, especially early in his innings. He knew where his off stump was – an impor tant asset to have for a top-or der batsman. Dravid had a simple game plan and he stuck to it. It comes back to patience: he had the patience to grind out long innings and wait for the right ball to hit. He had his specific shots that he wanted to play, and he would wait for the bowler to pitch in the area where he was comfortable playing an attacking shot. That made him very difficult to get out. The two best examples of how we lost the battle of wearing him down came in 2001 in Kolkata and 2003 in Adelaide. Both were good batting pitches. Our plan on both occasions was to be patient ourselves and stick to good bowling areas. Certainly in Adelaide there was good bounce and carry, and we thought that if we stuck to our plans we could get anyone out. But the way Dravid played, essentially he was more patient than us bowlers. We became impatient, especially when he scor ed that double-century, because we could not get him out, and that made us go away from our game plan. That in turn worked for him because his plan was to wait for the bowler to lose patience. Some might say our bowling attack in Adelaide was not as strong as the one in Kolkata, but I was leading a very good bowling attack and we believed we could dominate the Indians. However, we were just not good enough against Dravid. It was old-fashioned hard work, which he put in successfully and we did no t. I cannot recall beating Dravid more than one ball in a row. I remember in Adelaide, in the first
innings, at one point I decided to have a real go at him and bowl a few short deliveries. He was ducking them pretty comfor tably, and then suddenly he played a hoo k shot. It was a sort of top edg e – it went for a six and he go t to his fir st hundred. I was pretty devastated. That was an example of when I decided to move away from my game plan and he was well settled at the crease and took me on confidently. In 2001 when we went to India, we started off in Mumbai by winning the Test comfortably. In Kolkata, having forced them to follow on, we felt we had won the game, having picked up early wickets during their second innings. Dravid and Laxman together, we knew they were very good players, but we thought if we kept at them, they wouldn’t be able to deal with the pressure. But they counterattacked perfectly. I remember Dravid just playing in the V with a very straight bat and providing wonderful suppor t to Laxman. We just could not dislodg e them. At the end of that fourth day when we returned to the dressing room, with Dravid and Laxman unbeaten, we were like, “Wow, what just happened?” We were a little stunned and very disappointed. We knew we were just one ball away from getting one of their wickets, but we couldn’t produce that one ball. Those guys had done something special and we had to respect their performance. We all learn. On that 2001 trip, our fast bowlers’ plan was to bowl in the channel outside the off stump, get the Indian batsmen playing on one side of the wicket, and create opportunities that way. But we realised that Indian pitches were a lot flatter and slower and our plan would work only on bouncier tracks. In 2004, when we returned to India, we accounted for that and changed our lines to bowling a lot straighter and looking to hit the stumps every time. That worked, and it was one time that even Dravid was cir cumspect and vulnerable. The special thing about Dravid was that when he got a bad ball, he would be waiting for it and he had the ability to put it away. He did not miss those opportunities to score. That is sometimes the differ ence between a very good player and a gr eat player: the ability to sco re when you get the chance to scor e. And that is one of the reasons he averag ed mid-50s consistently in Test cricket. Many might call him a defensive batsman in the mould of a Jacques Kallis or a Michael Atherton, but Dravid ranks up there with the great batsmen of the game. To simply refer to him as a defensive player is selling him short as a batsman. He was a wonderfully gifted player and we all enjoyed the way he played the game. Former Australia fast bowler Jason Gillespie dismissed Dravid eight times in the 22 international matches he played against India. Gillespie spoke to Nagraj Gollapudi, assistant editor at ESPNcricinfo, where this article was first published on March 9, 2012
Dravid is one of four batsmen to be bowled more than 100 times in all international matches. He was out that way 112 times. The others in the top four: Tendulkar (117), Border (110) and Steve Waugh (102).
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His team, his time RAHUL BHATTACHARYA
“I do my best to be in a relaxed state of mind because that’s when I play at my best. I try to slow
things down a couple of days before the game. I have long lunches, do things in an unhurried way. The morning of the match I always get up a couple of hours before we have to get to the ground, so that I have plenty of time to get ready. I take my time to have a bath, wear my clothes, eat breakfast. I never r ush things, and that sor t of sets up my moo d for the rest of the day.” This was to Wisden Asia Cricket in Australia in December of 2003. Those were different times. Rahul Dravid had become India’s batting leader but not still its captain; he had recently become a husband but not yet a father. Two years on, this is the build-up to his first Test series as full-time captain of India. He spent the long evening of November 28 at the Wankhede in Mumbai, leading India to a serieslevelling win against South Africa. Seventy-eight not out chasing – drenched, coarse batting: he willed it, really. He applauded the spectators from mid-pitch moments after victory, called them “stars” at the presentation ceremony, and at the press conference that followed, he paid tribute above all to the unity within a team that had just completed an extraor dinary turnaround in the one-day g ame. He slept not a wink – “saw no point in it”, probably could not have from the adrenaline of the past month even if he wanted – and too k a 3am flig ht to Bangalor e. At 5.30am he was home and delig hted to find awake not only his wife but also Samit Rahul Dravid, all of six weeks (beam, soft smile, blush). He spent the whole of November 29 “doing nothing, absolutely nothing”. The next morning he was on the plane to Chennai and by early afternoon at a practice session that was the first involving Sourav Ganguly and Greg Chappell since their little email misunderstanding. That evening he “had a little meeting with Greg to talk about Test cricket, general things, specific things to the match”, departed to receive his wife and son at the airport, returned only at half past ten and went to bed later than usual. The following morning, December 1, he was at the ground with the team at 9.30am for a long session under billowing skies. It included, among other things, support staff delivering balls in Muralitharan action from atop chairs. At its completion he shuffled up to the first floor for a trophyunveiling ceremony, shuffled back down while the Sri Lanka captain and coach did their presser, shuffled back up to do India’s, where he showed just who was in charge by admonishing a senior ournalist’s innuendo about Virender Sehwag’s niggle with a blunt, “There’s no need to make issues of little things.” Shortly after, he was in a selection meeting with Greg Chappell and Kiran More at the hotel. “For mally I will announce the XI only in the team meeting. Anyway it’s only one or two guys who’ve missed out you need to tell – those guys I would have already told.” Following the selection discussion, “some foo d, bed for a bit. Then a captain’s meeting with the match officials. Now this.” “This” being Cricinfo Magazine’s first intrusion, which began at precisely 5.30pm in the coffee
shop, as scheduled. Throwing regular glances at the interviewer’s wrist while speaking passionately, the captain sprang up and shook hands in the middle of an answer at exactly a minute shy of 6pm. “Got to run, mate, another meeting.” This was the team meeting where Anil Kumble talked about his preparation for a Test match, Sachin Tendulkar dwelled on a few differences between Test and one-day cricket, and the captain himself, and VVS Laxman, relived their Adelaide partnership of 2003, because “one of the things we’re trying to do is make team meetings more interactive than watching endless replays of the opposing batsmen. You r ealise when champions like Sachin or Anil talk about the game, how much of time and thought they put into it – it’s not that they become champions by just turning up.” On the heels of the team meeting, the team dinner, since “anyway we have to eat food and people tend to stay cooped up in their rooms and order room service and watch television. These are great opportunities – to sit around and talk, try and make it as informal as possible, don’t try to make it too heavy as if you’re trying to give advice. I think Greg and Ian [Frazer] have been very good in that way.” An early night. And after all that, three and a half days of weather-watching. This meant trips to inspect the gr ound, on one of which he browsed the boundary, high-fiving the few hundred poor souls who had landed there hoping against hope; a few sessions at the gym; acquainting himself with the new selectors; providing his input on India’s itinerary for the tour to Pakistan; giving several interviews, engaging in more relaxed interaction with the players; spending bonus time with his family; and revisiting parts of Mike Brearley’s The Art of Captaincy (on the menu over the last few months has been a book on the NFL, one on boxing, and a couple on management, passed on by Frazer). Chennai finished with four fruitless sessions o f cricket. Then it was off to Delhi and the whole thing began again and finished in triumph, but by that evening Kolkata was burning again and the following day the Left and the BJP had found common cause in Parliament and it all pro mised to be just the start. By Ahmedabad the poor chap was in hospital. This now is Dravid’s wor ld. “It is different,” he shrugs, smiles. “I spoke to a few captains before I took the job up – and in the course of even when I was vice-captain – whether it’s been a Mark Taylor or Steve Waugh or Gavaskar, the basic thing they told me is that you grow into the job. One of the things you realise is the pace of the whole thing. It needs a bit of getting used to, no doubt about that.” Queried once about the three most important attributes for a batsman, Dravid’s first response was “balance”. It is a quality that will now be tested more than ever at the crease and he knows it because he always does. Rahul has been waiting – waiting, watching, listening, learning, preparing – long enough. His team, his time. There’s the bigger picture. Asked if he’s getting a sense of the kind of captain he’d like to be, Dravid says it will take time. “But,” he adds without cue, “I do have a sense of the kind of team I’d like to have.” Which is? “Which is, obviously, tough, competitive – a team that is looking to improve and have some fun along the way. Not taking things too seriously, as at the end of the day it is sport and we must have a lot of fun playing it and must play it hard.” As new captains mostly do, else there would scarcely be need to appoint them, Dravid has inherited a team in flux. At the time of writing it is no t known whether Ganguly will be on the plane to Pakistan or not. The same for Zaheer Khan. VVS Laxman and Anil Kumble, who are out of the one-day squad.
Ashish Nehra is Ashish Nehra and o n the mend. L Balaji is cr ocked and somewhat forgo tten. And it has hardly been as simple as that. For a period it appeared that the BCCI’s master plan to revive a flagging team was to appoint alternating captains while the board had some fun in court. The new coach was not exactly looked upon as Santa Claus. Without question it has been the most controversial year for Indian cricket since Mr MK was pouring his heart out to the CBI at the top of the decade. In case it has been forgotten, till September it had been a fairly rotten year for India’s results too. Something needed to be done. Chappell’s and Dravid’s approach, of which they were able to convince the selectors, was a shake-up. It has been the first and most crucial phase of team-building and it has been difficult. Some terribly cold decisions have been taken, opinions on which are bound to r emain divided. It is possible that some may have caused Dravid unease, but it is clear that he stands steadfast by a philosophy o f team ethic, and that stagnation has hurt as much as defeat. He is after selfstarters, those who “can lo ok back and say that I’m a better player now than I was four years ago. Or, I can do this better.” He does not like naming names but over and o ver in conver sation he will return to the phrase “finding the right people”. “The right people and – I hate to say it – not have the wrong people around them. You don’t want people whose own insecurities, whose own problems and whose own fears drag everyone else down. That can be a big dampener in teams. I want to say that at this level I shouldn’t need to motivate anyone. If I’m needing to motivate an international cricketer then there’s something wrong actually. The challenge is to not demotivate anyone. “If you’re going to be spending time in the team always having to cajole and look after a few people, you’re doing a disservice to the rest because you’re wasting and investing too much time and energy in a few people who’re taking away from the group. Players need to understand that they need to give energy to the unit. There are times, of course, when you’re not doing well and your form’s not good and you’ll need the support of other people. But most of the time you’ve got to give to the team and make sacr ifices to the team and give back to the team.” But are not bad boys, lonesome hobos, sluggish talents, going to be part of any side? What is his attitude towards them? “I believe that you need different kinds of characters in the team. But there are certain nonnegotiable rules because you’re playing a team sport. You’ve got to understand that your behaviour, the way you conduct yourself, affects other people and you have a responsibility to all of them. Those are the broad rules we work under. But within those non-negotiable rules I think it’s important to allow people to express themselves.” What, for example, did he say to the mightily gifted, passionate, but perma-dander-up Harbhajan Singh? In this instance Harbhajan came with particular baggage: he had openly sided with Ganguly in the Chappell row, and there had been suggestions, some, sadly, fr om within the team, that he had been deliberately trying to undermine Dravid. All through, his form had remained nondescript. “Well, Harbhajan’s a champion performer. One of the great things about Harbhajan is that he really cares about his bowling. He’s a ver y proud cr icketer. And it’s not hard wor k with people like that. I’ve no problems working with people who want to be champions, as simple as that. I think he figured out for himself that he needed to focus a bit more on the game and not worry about anything else, get back to what he was doing when he was successful. It’s credit to him, it’s not about what I’ve told
him.” What is the basic approach, though? The man to whose tome he has written a foreword, Steve Waugh, mentions slipping players memos, encouraging poems and other such cute stuff. Is Rahul Dravid a speech-maker ? A one-o n-one man? He laughs. “Better ask the guys.” Laughed off, too, are queries about perceptions of Chappell’s domineering style. “I don’t know where that has come from. I’ve not found him domineering at all. He’s been more than willing to listen to my ideas and my thoughts, and I get a very good say. At the end of the day I think he believes that a captain must get what he wants. In fact, in a lot of ways we do a lot of things in my way.” Rather, of the initial fr iction between Chappell and a section of the team he says that “like anything, sometimes it takes a bit of time for people to understand what the other person is trying to do and achieve. I think the guys have responded very well. I’ve really enjoyed it. In a lot of ways he’s trying to bring in some new thoughts, some new ideas. We have our opinions and sometimes we agree and sometimes we might disagr ee. At the end of the day, he’s done a really goo d job. He’s trying to coach teams in a slightly different way. I think it’s a good way.” What way is that? “I think he believes in giving different people different experiences so that they can learn and gr ow from those experiences, whether it is fr om different kinds of dr ills in practice or in match play, so that your mind has a variety of options to choose from. A big believer in the mental side of things.” Listening to Dravid, watching him work, you sometimes worry that he is consumed by an intensity that can burn, torn by “the trances of torment” of Melville’s Captain Ahab, who “sleeps with clenched hands; and wakes with his own bloody nails in his palms”. In truth, experience, not least time spent banished from the one-day team, and now a wholesome family life, has taught him that at some level there is nothing that is too impor tant. When asked, for instance, why Mark Taylor is among his favourite captains, the immediate response does not address Taylor ’s tactical sparkle. Rather it is because “he had a lot of balance, I felt. Equanimity. About Mark you felt that he always treated this as a game, nothing more and nothing less.” Maybe it is this outlook, and Dravid’s obvio us intelligence, that allows him to br ing to his captaincy a Taylor kind of adventure – ploy upon ploy, trick upon trick, never passive. “Basically,” he says, “I believe you’ve got to keep the game moving.” Enough has been seen so far to say that his major calls have been characterised by, one, the emphasis on team over individual, and two, the inclination to take the gamble so long as there is some cricketing log ic involved. He prefers not to discuss the Multan declaration with Tendulkar on 194, but is happy to delve into other instances that provide insight into a variety of aspects of his decisionmaking. One from the micro level. During the outstanding defence of 106 in Mumbai against the Australians in 2004, he famously threw the ball to Murali Kartik ahead of Anil Kumble in the fifth over of the fourth innings. Kartik responded with two wickets from his first six deliveries. “What happened there was that when I was batting in the second innings and Michael Clarke came on to bowl, he immediately started getting a lot of spin, and he bowled with a round-arm flat action. He was virtually impossible to play, bowling fast, straight balls that were spinning. There was no time to react to that. When I was batting it crossed my mind that Murali Kartik would definitely be a great
option on the wicket to right-handers, because he can push the ball through faster. But the good thing there was that Zaheer Khan took the wicket of Justin Langer in the first over – that was a very critical thing, Zaheer’s wicket, people forget that. It exposed [the right-handers] Ricky Ponting and Damien Martyn when it mattered, and I could get Kartik on.” In one-day cricket he has been an aggressive tactician, preferring at every turn the attacking option and often the left-field one. As far back as October 2003, again versus Australia in Mumbai, he opened the bowling with a spinner while standing in as captain. It did not quite come off – but it did provide a glimpse into his thinking. In Sri Lanka last July he showed that, particularly in defence of medium totals, he was prepared to risk looking foolish by keeping catchers on and the field up. But, he adds: “It depends on the quality you have. It’s all very well to say, “Put only two guys out.” For example, I can easily bring the field in for Harbhajan Singh but not so easily for Virender Sehwag. They are different bowlers, their level of consistency is different, their thinking is different.” Most revealing of his readiness to take risks have been the (largely successful) batting orders, which may seem to have been generated by an iPod shuffle but were, he explains, prompted as much by long-term strategy as plan for the day. “How do you sometimes get the best out of people?” he asks. “By challenging them. From personal experience I’ve seen that batting at differ ent positions has made me think about my cr icket differently. I had to bat at No. 3 for a part of my career in the one-day game, batted at No. 5, kept wickets, batted at No. 6, No. 4. The demands have been different. It’s obviously opened up my game. I’m hoping it will help a lot of others as well.” Long-term-view, too, were the decisions to rest Tendulkar and himself in consecutive games against Sri Lanka. Though the series was in the bag, the team had just found form, just managed to curb the increasing cynicism of the watching public. More conservative minds would have chosen not to tinker. More insecure souls would not have dared, at that stage, grant captaincy to another, even if for only one game. “It’s just that when you’re on the road and playing a lot of cricket, there’s a lot of physical pressure and a lot of mental and emotional pressure. I don’t think the same XI is going to be able to play the whole season for you. People need just a little bit of a break to recharge their batteries. In fact, when we’re playing a lot of one-day cricket I think there might even be a case for someone who doesn’t play to go back home and spend two days with his family. More can be gained by taking that time off than another long net practice. These are things we need to be aware of.” Perhaps Dravid’s strongest batting-order call came not in one-dayers but in the Delhi Test against Sri Lanka. With Virender Sehwag missing the game, Dravid promoted himself to open. He was on antibiotics for a viral flu, had been unable to make it to practice the previous day, and the voice escaped his body as if through a jute towel stuffed in the gullet. And he had failed in each of his seven previous innings as Test opener. In another time the wicketkeeper or the newest member might have been sent up. Dravid rejects the suggestion that it was about making a statement or setting an example. “It was a tactical decision. Losing Veeru opened up the situation. I knew there would be a bit in the wicket in the morning. I didn’t want to expose the middle order, and since I do bat at No. 3 and play the new ball quite often, I thought I would be the best equipped to handle it.” In the second innings, with quick runs the need of the hour, Irfan Pathan was sent in and the delightfully well-rounded stripling responded with a decisive 93. Dravid did not displace the strokeful VVS Laxman from the No. 3 slot he had
occupied in the first innings. In short, unnerving, but he seems to have it basically sussed. Creative but not absurd, ruthless but fair, diplomatic but articulate, ambitious but grounded, demanding but not dictatorial, progressive in every way, he has the makings o f a complete captain for the age. He even looks happy in skins. Inevitably a time will come when the team will lose and it is only then that Dravid will truly be tested and only by his response to that can he truly be assessed. Between them, Dravid and Chappell have taken or precipitated decisions of the type not usually associated with Indian cricket. Having done so, they’ve also turned up the heat on themselves. The challenge before the combine, even if neither may say it, is to better the successes of the Ganguly-Wright era, for that is how they will ultimately be gauged by the public. But to talk of this as the Dravid era suggests a kind of discontinuity from the past. For him it has been the same journey and it goes on. Six years ago, in a bid to overcome the staleness that had crept into his game, he spent a summer at Kent, which he regards as a key phase in his own selfunderstanding. It was there he met John Wright, whom he subsequently recommended to the board, and from there began a grandly exhilarating, grandly fluctuating period for Indian cricket, with his co-debutant at the helm and in which Dravid himself was performer-in-chief. In many ways it is Dravid who is the central bond between the eras. How does he look back on the last five years, the thrilling rise, the sagging end? In what ways has the approach changed? Flexibility, “total cricket”, there’s been a lot going on. What’s coming? “John did a fantastic job for us for the time that he came in. You must never forget that. He and Sourav had a good combination and they did some very good things for four years. John worked really hard and made sure we worked really hard. A lot of us raised the bar during the period. He created the rig ht environment and evolved a sense o f team in a lo t of things that we did.” His voice rises a touch and the earnestness is striking. “You know, teams go through ebbs and flows, things like team spirit, things like performances, they have to be constantly worked on. Just because you have it today doesn’t mean you have it tomorrow. You have to constantly reinforce it. Over a period of time, due to a lot of factors, maybe complacency to a certain extent, injuries to some extent, we struggled a bit. We’ve got to try and get that back. We’re trying. “I think there’s a lot of focus now on trying to get better at skill, thinking about the game a lot more… It’s early days… it’s going to take time. I don’t want to start saying that it’s something huge. Part of it has been necessitated by circumstances, part of it by need, part of it by what we’re thinking and where we want to go…” He weighs his words. “Like I said, it’s going to take time… We want a good team… We’re looking to challenge people… We’re looking to take it forward.” He leaves it at that. There’s not much more to ask. Rahul Bhattacharya is the author of the cricket tour book Pundits from Pakistan. He was contributing editor at Cricinfo Magazine when this article was first published there in January 2006.
The great innings
His batting is not, for some, immediately appealing; it is like some paintings, it requires a second look, a considered appreciation. Soon its beauty is revealed, its simple elegance, its clean, classical lines, its divorce from awkwardness, its stylish symmetry. He plays to his own wondrous sheet music. Rohit Brijnath, Twin treatises in courage, page 107
[ 14 ]
Hercules on second fiddle SIDHARTH MONGA
VVS Laxman’s epochal 281, among the greatest Test match performances of all time, stopped ustralia’s juggernaut in its tracks in Kolkata in 2001. It threw into the shade an innings that in any other game would have been the main event: Rahul Dravid’s 180, the epitome of sweat and toil, made in the teeth of extreme physical discomfort. For Dravid, it never came easy; this classic least of all.
180 v Australia, second Test, Kolkata, 2001
U ntil the afternoon of March 13, 2001, Rahul Dravid was a batsman too obsessed with technique to
score runs. On that day, despite an average of 52.23 in 42 Tests, he found himself in a corner. Against the three best attacks of that time, Pakistan, Australia and South Africa, he averaged 27, 29 and 36 respectively. Take out Zimbabwe and he had not scored a fifty in over a year. He struggled to score singles, finding fielders with well-timed shots. It was said he was thus building pressure on other batsmen, coming to bat as he did at No. 3. Shane Warne seemed to have a hold over Dravid, dismissing him a day earlier for the seventh time in seven and a half Tests. In the last two of those, Dravid, shy of moving well forward, had been bowled. On March 13, not for the last time in his career, Dravid swapped places with a batsman who often took o ut with him a wand instead of a bat. It was a desperate move fr om a desperate side, and one r ich in cricketing logic from what was going to become a successful side. India had just come out of the match-fixing scandal and were under a new captain and coach. If this was a bout, they were being manhandled by a professional, richly talented, deliberate-to-the-last-detail, bullying Australian side. The knockout punch was about to be delivered when India instinctively threw up VVS Laxman in defence. What followed was so blissful and magical, even the hard-nosed Australians were won over, putting behind poor umpiring and falling over each other to congratulate the miracle-makers. If Laxman caressed India out of trouble, Dravid chose the only way he knew: fighting through it, never mind that he had to play the pick-up truck to Laxman’s Rolls Royce, preferring to struggle out in the public eye than trying to hit his way out of form. For one full session he hobbled through for his runs, took tablets and saline drinks for cramps. He was denied a runner and at one point even drinks, but he’d be damned if he played one lo ose sho t in Kolkata’s humidity of o ver 90%. If Laxman was writing poetry at the other end, Dravid was just rediscovering the alphabet at his. A day ago he had been bowled by a Warne legbreak that pitched about four feet outside his crease, on the line of leg; and yet he couldn’t reach it, and was bowled. The feet were not leaving the crease at all, and he was not reaching the pitch of the ball. India were bowled out in 58.1 overs, thus having failed to reach 300 against Australia in ten straig ht innings. Laxman, though, counterattacked, and was the last man out, for 59 off 83 balls. When Laxman came back, the coach, John Wright asked him to not take off his pads, and to go in at No. 3 in the next innings.
Wright’s reasoning was damning for Dravid. “Watching Laxman make 59 while batting with the tail, I remembered Ian Chappell arguing that your No. 3 batsman should be a strokeplayer, someone who took the attack to the opposition, and put away the bad ball,” Wright wrote in John Wright’s Indian Summers. “Dravid was our regular first-drop, but he hadn’t hit his straps; his partnership with Tendulkar in Mumbai had been slow. We simply weren’t taking the initiative.” Ian Chappell was one of the commentators for the match, and he felt it was a mental thing with Dravid, that he needed to forget technique and score runs. The switch was working, too: Laxman was nearing a century by the time Dravid came out to bat, eight overs before stumps on March 13, and India had taken off all but 42 runs of the 274-run deficit. Smaller men have sulked and lost interest at such times, weaker men have tried to show the coach and captain they too can hit boundaries. Dravid swallowed it all and came out to fig ht the bigg est fight of his career. Off the first 52 balls he faced, either side of stumps on day three, he scored just nine runs. He couldn’t find the sweet part of the bat, he hit too hard, Warne looped the balls high, as if to a kid, Michael Kaspro wicz bowled 14 straight dots at him. When the umpire erroneously ruled a leg-bye as a single off the 15 th Kasprowicz delivery Dravid faced, the bowler came up to him and asked, “Which part of your bat did it hit?” Australia must have felt it was only a matter of time before Dravid succumbed, and they didn’t want him to get easy runs, any runs. At the other end, Laxman toyed with similar deliveries, having hit 20 fours in his 113. Umpire SK Bansal would soon join the drive. When Jason Gillespie – how well he bowled without any reward that day – got one to snarl at Dravid, the inside edge for four was ruled leg-byes. Dravid would have taken any runs then. In the next over Laxman mis-hit a pull off Glenn McGrath. Soon Dravid followed a short-of-length delivery, coming clo se to edging it. Now McGrath started his famo us mumble, all the way back to the top of his mark, the crowd began to dance, Dravid gritted his teeth and went back to struggling. Back foot in front of leg, front foot slightly open, the bat going up and down three times as the bowler ran in, the sweat beginning to drip already. He was only 11 off 69, and this was only the fir st hour. Wright wrote random notes on his laptop, Sourav Ganguly sat with a towel draped over his bare chest. In the next over, Laxman inside-edged Gillespie for four in much the same manner as Dravid. Laxman now took the most dangerous bowler on, off-driving, steering and cover-driving him for three more fours in that over. In the next over Dravid went at a wide delivery, punching McGrath slightly awkwardly through the vacant mid-off region, and it seemed he would now be away. The innings, though, was devoid of any flow or pattern: soon he would be beaten by one that held its line outside off. At the end of that over, the 90 th, drinks arrived. The first hour had been negotiated. In the first over after drinks, Dravid found timing, perhaps for the first time, when he cut McGrath, but not placement. The next ball stayed low. He was equal to it. Then he began moving forward to counter the variable bounce. McGrath went round the stumps, and this time Dravid convincingly punched him through mid-off for four. In the next over he sparred at a kicker from Kasprowicz. At 26 off 92, he was still looking for some sustained rhythm but not giving up. Then Dravid g ot a length ball on the pads, which he clipped wide of the fielder deep on the leg side. First signs he was in. Leading up to lunch the scoring rate increased. The clip into the leg side, at times from in front of off, remained the profitable shot. By lunch he was 50 off 127, but that came with its fair shar e of trouble too… fr om Ricky Ponting, who had been having a hor ror series with the bat. With the ball, he swung away at gentle pace, bringing the odd one back in. Two of those
inswingers could have – on another day – had Dravid lbw. One was a touch-and-go not-out with regard to the impact vis-à-vis off stump, and the other hit him marginally outside. India added 122 in the session. Australia’s over rate stayed good, and the fields attacking, even if India had begun to build a lead. At lunch they were 102 ahead. Forty minutes later Wright said to Laxman and Dravid, “See you after the next session.” Laxman nonchalantly drove the first ball after lunch for four. Dravid repeated the dose to near-nemesis Ponting in the next over. Just when it began to look easy, Ponting got one to rear at Dravid’s gloves. Laxman called for a quick single. He stopped. He resumed. He was short. He dived. Laxman. Dived to make the crease. They were not go ing to get out today. Not even run o ut. Now Dravid pulled Ponting to midwicket. Michael Slater – who had been all o ver Dravid in the last Test, abusing him because Dravid had dared question the legality of a catch – gave chase, kept the ball in, threw it back to Ponting, who conceded an overthrow. Dirty looks exchanged. Wheels coming off. Dravid ran all four. India effectively 132 for 4. A bread-and-butter couple off the pads followed. The dream of 17 straight wins was fast evaporating. Only one slip remained. Were they thinking of a draw now, to protect the lead? In the next over Dravid defended one, and it spun towards the stumps. He looked to chest it away, decided against it. He looked to kick it away, but the ball was too close to the stumps – he could have been hit-wicket. He chose to let it bounce a second time. It bounced about six inches from the stumps: he still couldn’t risk kicking it away; he let it be. The off stump stood. Eden Gardens heaved as one. The emblem on Dravid’s helmet had begun to come unstuck; it looked like it had come off a few mor e inches during the effor t. Mark Waugh finally provided respite. Dravid took a wide half-volley and drove it wide of mid-on. He was finally dictating. Another on-drive. A pull. The lead was 150 now, and Dravid on 76. And again he was to be pulled back. Gillespie bowled a massive offcutter that hit him flush on the box. He hobbled through for a legbye, and as soon as he reached the crease he pulled out the box and went down. When he got up, he doubled over his bat. Andrew Leipus, the physio, came out, not for the last time. Minutes later Dravid put the box back in, and Eden cheered. His shirt was now wet enough to start clinging onto him. How long before cr amps set in? Gillespie kept troubling him with the variable bounce, and his extra pace, that final snap of the shoulder. How beautiful his action, how harsh his luck. He put everything into it. He bowled cutters, he held the ball across the seam, he even reversed it for a while. Dravid kept moving forward to try to keep the low-bouncing balls out, but kept getting beaten once in a while. By drinks in the afternoon, Dravid had reached 84, two fewer than his previous best against Australia, and Laxman’s back began acting up. He almost hadn’t played this Test, because he had been “listing”, which means, in Wright’s words, “his shoulders and hips weren’t in line”. It is the body’s way to protect a damaged back. Now the tilt was back, and Leipus gave him exercises. What had been happening during the session breaks now had to happen out in the open. Laxman was four short of a double then, and you realised Dravid had begun to shepherd him. In that hour Laxman faced only 39 balls out of 90. In the last seven overs, Dravid had faced 31 deliveries. Dravid, who had fed off Laxman’s momentum and learned from Laxman’s momentum, was now giving back to him. They had played together often for South Zone in age-group cricket and in the Duleep Trophy. Now the firm was going global. Dravid knew he need not bother about tempo
as long as Laxman was there, Laxman knew Dravid wouldn’t throw it away as long as he was conscious. For a second, soon after the drinks break, Dravid borrowed Laxman’s audacity. Towards the end of another spell where Gillespie kept doing things with the ball at 145kph, one stayed dangerously low. Dravid not only kept it out, he worked it through midwicket to reach 89 off 186, his best against Australia. Laxman soon got his double, driving a wide half-volley from Mark Waugh for four. The two hugged and went back to wor k. As Dravid neared his century, the realigned Laxman resumed domination of the strike. Dravid’s progress further wasn’t smooth. He spliced a hook off Kasprowicz, and then under-edged another off Mark Waugh. We were entering dangerous territory: Dravid had been dismissed in the 90s four times before this. Ganguly still had his upper body wrapped in a towel. He was not the only superstitious one. During an over break, Warne, Adam Gilchrist and Justin Langer swapped their shades. Nothing worked. Laxman went past 206 off Warne’s bowling – the highest score by an Indian against Australia; the previous best had been by Ravi Shastri before Warne made him his first Test victim. Dravid was now using his feet well to Warne, not quite driving inside-out from the rough outside leg but kicking him away well. Dravid was nearly run out on 97 when Matthew Hayden dived at cover but couldn’t hit the stumps. A tired Dravid had given up. Before the start of the next over, that showman Warne made Dravid wait. He took his time setting the field. Called in forward short leg. Then moved a fielder in the deep a few feet. Then called fo r a silly point. Then Gilchrist moved a man in the deep. Dravid waited. Three times the bat went up and down in the stance. Dravid, who had been accused of not moving to the pitch of the ball, now stepped down and drove him wide of mid-on. Six steps down the pitch, he leapt into the air. Not too high, but high enough to suggest how much this meant. Then you saw it on his face. Anger. He raised his bat to the dressing r oom, and then pointed it to a higher level, to the media box. Tony Greig, just the man for the occasion, was on air. He used the words “sticks it up”. That’s the oint-angriest Dravid has ever been in the public eye. The other was when he was asked in Pakistan if a match that India had fought hard to win was fixed. This, though, was more personal. Deeper. The constant criticism must have got to him. This over-my-dead-body hundred was perhaps the last affir mation he needed to know he belonged. And how he belonged. Dravid’s hundred included 13 fours, nine of them in front of square on the leg side. Fifty-eight of the runs came there. Mostly clips, flicks, drives, and the odd pull. The bowling and conditions had been conquer ed by now. India led by well over 200, a defendable target, with six wickets still in hand. This Australian team, though, came with an aura. Nothing was considered beyond them. India needed to bat through till stumps at least. Seven minutes before tea, Jagmohan Dalmiya, the ICC under his chairmanship and the Cricket Association of Bengal his fiefdom, announced an award of 2 lakh for Laxman, for the fir st double by an Indian at the Eden Gardens. He made sure it was announced during the live coverage on TV. Soon the big boar d at the gr ound would announce 1,000 for each of Laxman’s runs until his 236th, then the highest Test scor e by an Indian, and 2,000 for each run after that. Laxman’s beauty not only survived amid the crassness, it blossomed. At tea, the contest still alive, the game still anybody’s, Australia let the Indians lead the teams off the field. Dravid let Laxman stay a pace ahead. Shastri, a commentator then, couldn’t wait for stumps to shake Laxman’s hand. Leipus waited inside to realign him. It would have been hard enough for a fit
and fresh man to stay focused, and Dravid was about to begin cramping up. “See you after the session,” Wright said, and Dravid – having swapped his full-sleeved shirt for a fresh half-sleeved one – went out and waited for Laxman to ar rive. Australia tried to put a brave face on, charging onto the field, throwing the ball around, looking sprightly, waving to the camera, their one last effort to reclaim a winning position. Two years before, on March 14, leading West Indies 1-0, they had seen Brian Lara scor e a cr azy, match-winning do ublecentury. Jimmy Adams was the Dravid to Lara’s Laxman then. Did Steve Waugh, a historically minded captain, think of that game? Surely it was not going to happen again? Not after India had been asked to follow on. Only twice had a team won fr om such a predicament. Hayden – Australia had already tried everybody except Langer, Gilchrist and Steve Waugh – and McGrath resumed proceedings after tea. Hayden bowling nagging swing at around 125-130kph, and McGrath using the unevenness of the bounce. Dravid clipped Hayden off the pads and limped thro ugh for one. Cramp? A muscle pull? McGrath tested him further. Dravid played out two successive maidens from McGrath. Too tired to manoeuvre the ball or steal a quick run. Leipus made another trip so on. With a tablet and a saline dr ink. It was cr amps, then, which don’t qualify you to get a r unner. Dravid could hardly lift his arms. The pill hit the helmet grille and fell. Leipus placed it inside his mouth. He also undid and redid the pads, to r elive some of the strain on the calves. In the next over, the two of them hobbled through for a single, and Steve Waugh – who had been trying all day to sneak in a run-out – fumbled. Chappell compared it to the deep end of a heavyweight bout between sluggers who were too tired to even throw punches. No one was taking a dive, though. Not just yet. Dravid had now stopped bothering about the singles. He on-drove Hayden for four to take India past 500, and then cover-drove McGrath through a tight field. Laxman screamed from the other end: “Played, Jam.” “Hang in, Jam.” Didn’t matter if it was a four or a block or leave. Dravid would nod. They knew they were to see Wright only after the end of the session. At some point before the final drinks break of the day, Ganguly had put on a shirt. A sign India were out of the woods? Venkatesh Prasad and Venkatapathy Raju, who earlier dared not move from their seats, were now mimicking how Bansal raised his finger. Gillespie came back for another brutally unlucky spell. He even tried running in with his arms spread like an eagle, in a bid to distract the batsmen. Warne bowled bouncers. Laxman joked with Peter Willey, presumably – and cheekily asking him if Dravid could get a runner. Let alone a runner, soon Willey would banish energy drinks too. Try telling this to today’s players, who enjoy unscheduled breaks at the slightest excuse, as the powerless umpires watch. Back then, India were only just entering the modern professional era. They didn’t have laptops and analysts; they didn’t even have neckerchiefs. Some resourceful person in the back room sliced towels into thin strips and put them in ice. During the drinks br eak, Hemang Badani and Sarandeep Singh tied them on the batsmen’s necks. It was not difficult to draw boxing par allels. The bell r ang ag ain. Laxman soon reached 250. That was 2,64,000 wor th. A tenth of what they get fr om an advertisement contract nowadays? A decade later, Ishant Sharma, playing for Kolkata Knight Riders, made 1.5 lakh per ball bowled. Not all the money in the wor ld could buy the joy and satisfaction of exhaustion that Laxman and Dravid would have felt then. Six overs later, they got new makeshift neckerchiefs. Dravid turned Mark Waugh around the corner to r each 150. He was not angr y now. It might have seemed he was too exhausted to show anger, but on the evidence of the rest of his career, Dravid’s earlier show of emotion was an aberration. He was
moving smoo thly now. Australia even tried Langer now. Without further incident, Dravid and Laxman became the third Indian pair – after Vinoo Mankad and Pankaj Roy, and Gundappa Viswanath and Yashpal Sharma – to bat through a day’s play. That’s 540 legal deliveries, nine modes of dismissals possible with each, and none came to pass. Laxman had added 166 runs, Dravid 148. From being minus-274 on March 13, the day Dravid was still a man too obsessed with technique to score runs, a man with low averag es against the best attacks of the day, India were now 315 ahead. Australia’s dream had been interrupted. They had had bad decisions against them when they batted. They were about to break through the doors of the Final Frontier. Then this happened. So beautiful was this that Australia lined up to congratulate the two batsmen. Once again, Laxman and Dravid led the way off the field. They had just about enough energy to shake hands before walking straight into the makeshift hospital that was the dressing room. One man went on a lunch table, the other on the physio’s. Doctors were ready with drips. The two now lay next to each other, in the knowledge they had shared something special, that, in Dravid’s words, “would define our careers from now on, irrespective of what we achieved or didn’t achieve after that”. On the fifth day, Laxman added only six before cutting McGrath straight to deepish gully. A period of uncertainty followed. India kept batting without any increase in the tempo, despite a lead of over 300. Every over purposelessly batted away diminished their chances of winning, which would be the only perfect end to this turnaround. Turned out Wright and Ganguly had conferred and decided they wanted to frustrate Australia, who didn’t like being played out of a game. It was the perfect chance for Dravid to get to a double-hundred. He simply wouldn’t get the strike, though. He scored 25 off the 34 balls he got on the fifth morning, and as he tried to steal a single when Zaheer Khan pushed one to cover, he was sent back. Dravid had covered more than 22 yards in running up and coming back, and he was caught shor t. He went back shaking his head. Not all the way back to the pavilion, though. He wasn’t an angry man anymore. He was to cherish the moment. He raised his bat to all parts of the ground before walking off. He now knew he belonged. Sidharth Monga is an assistant editor at ESPNcricinfo
The bowlers who got Dravid out most often in ODIs were both fairly unlikely names: Sanath Jayasuriya and Abdul Razzaq, who dismissed him six t imes each.
[ 15 ]
The monk of Headingley SANJAY BANGAR
While Kolkata 2001 was the first glimpse of a new, aggressive India, it was at Headingley a year later that the team showed real steel. Rahul Dravid was the chief forger, absorbing all the heat to create one of India’s most memorable wins abroad.
148 v England, t hird Test, Leeds, 2002
M atthew Hoggar d delivered a fuller-length delivery on my leg stump. It had looked, at least to me,
like an innocuous ball going down leg side, and I reacted accordingly. But suddenly it slithered past my hanging bat, like a fast legbreak on a turning pitch.
Rahul Dravid walked up to me and said with a smile, “Boss, this is not Karnail Singh.” Karnail Singh is the home ground of my domestic team, Railways, and its pitch is slow, flat and low. Headingley, Leeds, in the nor th of England, was cold, fast and unreliable. The year 2002 was an interesting one for me and Indian cricket. The English summer had been mixed going in to Headingley. We had won the NatWest ODI series final after coming back from the dead. It was a wonderful achievement for Indian cricket; the chase of 325 was one of the top five in ODI history at the time, and we achieved it after losing near ly all our specialist batsmen. We lost the first Test at Lord’s. At Trent Bridge, Ajay Ratra, the first-choice wicketkeeper, was not fit to take the field and 17-year-old Parthiv Patel made his debut. England dominated the first four days, but India, led by a century from Rahul, fought valiantly on the final day to save the Test. I don’t think we could have drawn it if not for Parthiv’s daring efforts with the tail in the final 20 overs. That fightback gave us fresh belief for the rest of the tour. The day befo re the Leeds Test, John (Wright) told me I was to play. Of my five Tests till then, I had done well in three. In the last, in the West Indies a few months ago, I had failed. I asked John where my career stood. He plainly told me, “I do not know.” So I knew this was my make-o r-break Test. Sourav won the toss and elected to bat since we had two spinners in the side. On TV, Sunil Gavaskar called it a brave decision. Nasser Hussain smiled happily for he had a good four-pronged fastbowling attack that could take advantage of the overcast conditions. The much talked-about Headingley pitch was foreign to me, though I had read about it in Darren Gough’s autobiography, so I knew about its slope and what kind of adjustments a bowler would need to make. Even Rahul, who came out in the seventh over after Veeru (Sehwag) edged Hoggard to slip, was playing only his second match there. He had played there for Kent against Yorkshire in 2000, but that match had finished inside three days. It was the first time I was batting with Rahul in a Test. Already that year he had impressed me by taking the initiative to get the team together. At the start of the West Indies tour he said every player would be asked to talk about the team. I wrote a poem and read it out during our first meeting. That move by Rahul, I felt, brought the team together and made newcomers like me feel more confident.
He also asked me out to dinner in the Caribbean. In England, after the second Test, I returned the favour, and he was happy to join me with two other team-mates. By the time we batted at Headingley we were comfor table with each other. Neither of us spoke a lot on the field, and the only instruction Rahul gave me was to look out for sharp singles and always be ready to run. I was a slow runner but Rahul never showed his disappointment. We were going at just about two runs an over till lunch, yet he didn’t ask me to change my approach. Not that it meant Headingley was quiet. The fans kept shouting “Geddon with it.” The close-in fielders chirped constantly, telling us we were going nowhere with our two-per-over run rate. “Mate, you’re not getting enough runs… a couple of wickets and you’ll be the same again,” they said. Early in the innings I noticed a big difference in our techniques: Rahul was looking to get forward, as close to the pitch of the ball as possible, but would play with soft hands, whereas I was hanging back in my crease, trying to use the pace of the ball to create runs. That was probably why he took more blows on his fingers, hands, elbows and body. The first session was the most important: England’s bowlers were hostile, looking for one wicket, ust one. They were confident they could tear a part the rest of our batting order once they broke through. Rahul not only stopped them from doing that, he frustrated, annoyed and exhausted them for the better part of five sessions. There were three things Rahul had to counter in the innings: swing, seam, and awkward and variable bounce. He weathered them successfully for more than seven hours, revealing his strength of character and his quality as a batsman. Hoggard and Andy Caddick mostly moved the ball away, so once you got your eye in, you didn’t really falter against them. But Alex Tudor had natural inswing, and that added to the variable bounce made him the most dangerous bowler to face, at least in the first session. He bowled a hostile spell and troubled us the most. He kept bowling into our bodies. When a bowler does that, no matter how go od a batsman you ar e, you start to think about getting hit. Rahul copped a few from Tudor. Once, before lunch, he was hit hard on his fingers, but he didn’t flinch. As a batsman you are always looking to score mental victories over your opponent. The next ball hit him on the forearm. The message he conveyed to Tudor was: I’m digging in and I’m not go ing to give my wicket away easily. It was old-fashio ned Test cricket. I have seen many Rahul Dravid innings. The striking thing, to me, was that he played more balls outside off stump initially, as against when he was settled. It seemed like after a poo r tour of Australia in 1999-2000, he wanted to assert himself early in an innings. If he made 20 or 25, he could get into his comfort zone and start leaving balls outside off stump alone. At Headingley, though, he was happy to keep shouldering arms, as many times as possible. It was as if John had asked him to do a set of exercises repeatedly. Rahul understood that the bowler would beat him many times and that he needed to accept that. I call him a monk in that respect. He does not have an ego and can easily concentrate on the next ball after he has been beaten by one. Many other batsmen might have struggled in a similar situation. The key was, Rahul knew exactly what he had to do to survive on this wicket and he adapted accordingly. It is a given that Indian batsmen will score runs on spin-fr iendly pitches. They have also go t runs on fast and bouncy Australian wickets. But very few Indians have succeeded in seaming and swinging conditions.
The effect of his patience was so strong that though England’s fast bowlers bowled some good spells, they were eventually frustrated. In fact, we later read that Duncan Fletcher, then England’s coach, was so disappointed with his bowlers’ lines that he started drawing charts to explain to them where exactly to pitch the ball. One of the mistakes they made was to keep pitching it mostly back of a length instead of full. By the time Sachin Tendulkar and Sour av started dominating, Rahul had crushed England’s will. He was the one who went out in the vanguard and neutralised the dangers of the pitch, allowing the other two to easily post big scores. It was the first time in six years that all three scored centuries in the same Test. After that our seamers and spinners combined to deny England any room in which to fight back. It was one of India’s largest victor ies over seas. In a way that match changed the general opinion about Indian cricketers. We took a lot of risks at Headingley. It was the turning point of our overseas record. We had not beaten big teams outside India. The tide was turning. And Rahul had a lot to do with that. Sanjay Bangar, who played 12 Tests for India, and scored 68 at Headingley, spoke to ESPNcricinfo assistant editor Nagraj Gollapudi
[ 16 ]
Twin treatises in courage ROHIT BRIJNATH
When India went to Australia late in 2003, few predicted they would get away with more than honourable defeats. After a rain-affected draw in Brisbane, the second Test belonged to Rahul Dravid, who led India to their first win in Australia in over 20 years, with two innings of efficient urity and defiance. “Rahul batted like god,” his captain, Sourav Ganguly, said.
233 and 72 v Australia, second Test, Adelaide, 2003
D usk descended gently and soon a scoreboard that told an improbable tale would be obscured.
Seagulls loitered as sprinklers hiccupped. The team bus had gone home and the Adelaide Oval echoed with silence. But inside the dressing roo m, amidst the detritus of empty Gator ade bottles and sandwich wrappers, he was still there, tired smile on drawn face, cold beer in limp hand, the hero contemplating his finest moment. Above him, as he craned to look, high on the wall hung a whiteboard, on which the names of travellers who had taken five wickets or scored a century were inscribed. His name had not been written yet, the 233 beside it, but his eyes told you he could already read it. Maybe Rahul Dravid just wanted to slowly inhale the last remaining scent of victory, take one last look at this foreign place where he and his team had imprinted its greatness. His team had owned this stadium briefly, and he was not ready to leave just yet. It wasn’t unusual for him, this linger ing, it is part of why he plays. “I do that quite often,” he says. “I like the warmth of the dressing room. After you’ve done five days of battle it feels like home, to share so many emotions with so many different people, it’s fantastic to stay and soak in it.” Those innings in Adelaide, the 233 and the 72 not out, were essays in concentration, studies in craftsmanship, treatises in courage. They were the most compelling advertisement of the truth that he is one of finest batsmen of his generation. They are also, not wholly but partially, an education in him as player and man. Last month, in Wisden Asia Cricket magazine, he wrote an article on books. He remembered his days as a young player, curled up on the wooden bunk as the train rattled its way to another match, reading To Kill a Mockingbird. In Adelaide, Racers, the story of the dramatic 1996 Formula One season, rested on his table. But there is one book he identifies with powerfully, perhaps because the tale has something of him in it. David Halberstam’s The Amateurs studies in detail the quest of American rowers for Olympic selection, dissecting their pain, their rage, the obsession of their our ney. Down the phone fr om Hobart, Dravid explains: “It shows you true passion and true drive. It’s what sport is about for people who play it. It’s not about the accolades or the money, but about the personal battles, the sacrifice. It’s about the process, and I enjoy that.” His process, as in Adelaide, commences in the morning. The silent warrior awakes, then in his room he visualises – the portrait of an artist in boxer shorts. As his batting suggests, this man prefers method to chance. He will see the bowler in his mind, envision his action, and then barefoot, with bat in hand, take stance and meet the imaginar y ball.
In the first innings, he is there in total for 594 minutes, searching for harmony between mind and feet, discovering a way to stay in concentration’s embrace. He does not care for statistics, he is not distracted by his nation spellbound, for he says, “You can’t be thinking, ‘What if I fail?’ “You can’t concentrate for ten hours. You switch on and off, you push yourself, your mind wanders, you bring it back, you steel yourself. That’s the real beauty, when you win the battle against yourself,” he explains. This is the essence of Dravid, waging his silent, private war. He is occasionally bewildered that after he is done, the pleasure of what he has accomplished is not that powerful; for him, “more joy” is found while completing the task. He is an inward-looking player, an analyser, constantly scrutinising his art, dismembering his innings and emotions into pieces for study. Predictably, he is too intelligent to be at ease with this hero business; he finds it discomforting, exaggerated. He says: “I don’t really feel like a hero, my only qualification is that I come on television more than a nurse or a soldier or a teacher. Anyway, I don’t think sportsmen can really be considered heroes.” At the crease in Adelaide, his brain will register heat, applause, scoreboard, partner, but it is the specific bowler o f the moment that he is attuned to. That this is Jason Gillespie r unning in, hair askew, awakens the warrior in him. “The Australians always come hard at you, you’re always in a contest, and this makes it easier to concentrate. In fact, when change bowlers like [Simon] Katich come on, you have to focus harder.” His second innings, India chasing 230, is more valuable, more arduous. The pressure is stifling and his fine form of earlier days initially deserts him. “I didn’t feel in much control. I had to fight through periods, r efocus, r eminding myself of what I wanted to achieve. My goal was to no t get out, to make it as difficult as I could.” He is both calm and desperate, driven by emotion yet aware it is dangerous. “I’ve been playing for seven years and we’ve lost a lot of games, and I was just fed up, and during many periods on Tuesday I kept telling myself I didn’t want to go through that again.” His batting is evidence of a careful work ethic, of a player who shares a comfortable companionship with discipline. After the Test, his captain, Sourav Ganguly, will say on television: “He’s the best role model you can have, because he works so hard, thinks so much.” But this is also genetics, this willfulness written into some invisible chromosome. He says his mother, an artist, “is a very determined woman; when she sets her mind to something she does it”. Mother gets a doctorate in art in her mid-50s, and son takes photographs at the ceremony; of these innings, mother would approve. In the first innings, he plays 446 balls, in the second, 170, so many just watched and left as if unworthy of his bat’s attention. Monks are less circumspect than him, and indeed, when he plays it appears he is delivering a sermon on batsmanship. Yet his carefully calibrated approach has a powerful reason. “As much as I get confidence from playing shots, I also sometimes gain confidence from leaving balls, because it gives me an idea of where my off stump is.” His batting is not, for some, immediately appealing; it is like some paintings, it requires a second look, a considered appreciation. Soon its beauty is revealed, its simple elegance, its clean, classical lines, its divorce from awkwardness, its stylish symmetry. He plays to his own wondrous sheet music. He is the owner o f more shots than some believe; he is mer ely fastidious about what to play when, but
when he delivers, in Adelaide, cover drives of such precise sophistication, it is worth any wait. Polished, fussy batsmen like him are often eclipsed by the quicker scorers, those with flair and flourish. It scarcely bothers him. “People like to come and watch great shots, and players playing attractively. That’s natural. So would I.” But this unpretentious, engaging man is an owner of different virtues, just as precious. As he says: “I don’t have some of the gifts of a Tendulkar or a Lara, but I have other things. I’d like very much to be respected as someone who is courageous and fights and does his best. I enjoy an innings [like the 233 and 72], for it brings out different facets of my character that are dear to me – commitment and discipline and co urag e.” But he knows gifts themselves mean little; in themselves they are inadequate. “The challenge,” he says, “is making the best of the gifts you have got. I have learnt this from Tendulkar, who has wor ked extremely hard to make best use of his g ifts.” All his life, even when belittled, Dravid has stayed faithful to these gifts. Years ago, when considered unfit for the one-day team, even told to sandpaper his offspin because it might help selection – a time of great humiliation for him – his response was classic. Then, he told me, he could have either moped and moaned and believed the world was against him, or he could have gone to the nets and found a way to get better. He chose well. But let us not believe he is all seriousness, some swotting student with no time to look at and smell life, because that is not him. Mostly, in fact, if you meet him for dinner, there is a charm and roundedness to him that is appealing. Indeed, of all the moments in Adelaide, the one he enjoys more than most points to a man who delights at cricket’s charming surprises. It came around tea on the third day. He had begun the day at 43, VVS Laxman on 55, yet late in the day when he looked at the scoreboard, he noticed with amusement that he, impossibly, had outpaced his usually mo re fluent friend. You do n’t need to see the grin on his face, because he is laughing down the phone when he talks of this: “Yeah, jeez, not a bad effor t for a blocker, huh?” No, not bad at all. Rohit Brijnath covered the 2003 Adelaide Test for the Melbourne Age , for whom he worked at the time and where this article was first published. He is now a senior correspondent with the Straits Times in Singapore.
Dravid scored more Test runs and centuries at Eden Gardens than at any ot her ground. In nine Tests there he made 962 runs at an average of 68.71, with four hundreds.
[ 17 ]
Notes from an ugly epic RAHUL BHATTACHARYA
Rahul Dravid’s Rawalpindi marathon was a landmark for being the longest Test innings in Indian history, and more for securing India’s first-ever Test series victory in Pakistan. It was the ultimate background innings, uncharacteristic in its lack of fluency but typical for its awesome commitment. He was in excellent humour throughout. This is an edited excerpt from Pundits from Pakistan: on tour with India 2003-04.
270 v Pakistan, third Test, Rawalpindi, 2004
A world away Brian Lara was approaching a quadruple-century in a Test innings, and accordingly
some guests arrived late to Waqar Younis’ retirement dinner in Rawalpindi, some left early, others whisked themselves away to the giant screen in the coffee shop.
Rahul Dravid watched the moment on the TV in the gymnasium area. With him was the Marathi ournalist and editor Sunandan Lele. Dravid marvelled at Lara’s technique, which allowed him the option of a defensive stroke or an attacking one to every ball till the very last moment. Above all he marvelled at Lara’s appetite. Lele had just interviewed Dravid. He had asked him about his dry run in this Test series. “Vees,” Dravid had held up two fingers and replied, “vees houn dya” (Twenty, just let me get past 20). And at dinner on day one of the Test, he excused himself early from the table. He wanted to sleep well, he told his companions, because he had to bat all day tomo rrow. Presuming an opening stand longer than one ball, the Maestro was a touch late to the crease the previous evening, still attiring himself as he reached. But now, after a good night’s rest, Dravid fell clean out of his gr oove. The go od’uns still make it count; and maestros, of cour se. He was just not feeling it. Mohammad Sami had a close lbw shout against him on the fourth ball of the morning. Soon he edged Shoaib Akhtar out of the reach of third slip. On 21, he was a goner, surely, struck again by Sami on the pads. Not given. This was not an easy morning for India, nor was it expected to be, for the grass still had not fully browned and there was movement about. Parthiv Patel was briefly troubled by Shoaib’s bouncers. Illadvisedly Shoaib bowled only bouncers, all for a macho smirk at watching a little guy leap about. Parthiv fell soon after lunch, pushing Fazl-e-Akbar away from his body, which brought Sachin Tendulkar to the crease. Shoaib was produced at the other end. First ball, back of a length, steaming hot, climbing, shoulder height, off stump, wicked, evasion from Tendulkar, jubilation from the keeper, appeal fro m Shoaib, no r esponse fro m umpire, Tendulkar walks, 130 for 3. In the snap of a finger the game had opened up. Pakistan needed to break the door down. Some magic, some madness, some inimitable Pakistani inspir ation; this was the moment, now was the time. Nervous moments followed for India. VVS, the new man, made a wristy edge off Shoaib. Dravid
top-edged Fazl over the keeper. Fazl and Sami strayed on to the pads of the Indian gents, an irredeemable error, and accordingly were creamed for boundaries. Dravid began treating Sami’s bowling with increasing disrespect, taking two more off-side boundaries, but on 71, with the total on 177, he allowed himself a flailing up-and-under cut, the type he rarely indulges himself with. Yasir Hameed plonked it at point. It was, as they say, a lollipop. Yasir said later, endearingly: “Sometimes you get so engrossed in watching batsmen like Rahul Dravid and Sachin Tendulkar that you lo se focus on your job.” Dravid continued to buffet rough seas. On 77, there was a prolonged inquiry into a caught-behind off Danish Kaneria. It was, even on the slowest replay, a not fully discernible f lurry of bat, boot, earth and ball. My own impression from the freeze frames was that it had gone from bat to boot to the keeper, which should be o ut. Misery was piled on misery: Dravid edged a cut wide of slip in Kaneria’s next over. From the other end Shoaib bowled another bumper, which jarred Dravid’s finger, and the physio was summoned. This was a wretched innings. But look at the scor e. Tea was taken, and after it VVS opened his wings and soared away. There was nothing to do but blush. On three occasions he took a pair of boundaries off Fazl. He flick-pulled him to square leg; he punched him into the covers and touched him straight down. Pakistan’s fieldsmen may as well have retired to their tents, for VVS was not about to hit to them. To his five boundaries in the 90 minutes befor e tea, he added seven mor e in just 30 minutes after. Dravid picked his own pace, hooking Fazl unconvincingly and straight-driving him utterly convincingly. Pakistan were not stuck between a rock and a hard place, more like between an advancing wall and a dancing swordsman. Whatever is the chemistry that these two share, can it please be bottled up and stored for all time? With a turn to leg off Kaneria he reached his 17 th Test hundred. He now had a century in and against every country barring Bangladesh, an anomaly he would rectify before the year was out. On only one of these 17 occasio ns had India lost. Inzamam claimed the new ball as soon it became available. Shoaib drew an edge from Dravid, it flew, down, wide of second slip, and two slips were all there were. It was impossible to remember a Dravid innings as coar se as this. Out of nowhere, on a day he had spent peppering his own toe, Shoaib screeched an outswinging full toss past a half-flick and into the middle stump halfway up, leaving VVS blinking at a blur. Sourav Ganguly was gr eeted by a leg g ully, a for ward short leg, many slips, and crimson flames blowing o ut of Shoaib’s nose. On the first delivery to the Indian captain, Shoaib tumbled and fell in his followthrough and left the field. Pakistan’s attack, lacklustre, luckless, sank into submission. Planes flew over Pindi, the sun fell away, and Ganguly prospered, cutting away, every bowler, cutting till the final ball of the day, from Kaneria, to bring up an effortless fifty. Dravid too approached his inevitable best in this last hour. And asked by the press at the end of the day if he was eyeing Lara’s 400, he broke into a grin: “Four hundred? For me to score 400 the Test match would have to go into a sixth day.” Sami burned his soul through a 13-over spell in the morning, but he could gain neither Umar Gul’s
deviation off the wicket nor Shoaib’s bounce. And reverse swing continued to be elusive. Besides, there was Dravid to contend with. He had spent most of the previous day smoothing rough edges, and now his bat did not have any. When Ganguly was run out, for 77, 45 minutes into the morning, it was history in its seventh repetition as farce. Of Dravid’s seven run-outs in Tests, four had been in collaboration with his captain, and out of Ganguly’s three, all had been in duet with his deputy. They were magnets configured to always face each other the wrong way, jolting madly towards one another when they needed to stay far away, repelling madly when they needed to move towards one another with alacrity. In this instance, deputy’s role was to watch as captain comically ducked a throw and failed to ground his bat. Dravid consolidated diligently with Yuvraj, committed to “bat once, bat big”, as per plan. An hour after lunch he reached 200, just as he had reached 100, ticking Kaneria to leg. Inzamam came over for a handshake. Cynics suggested this was only because of the criticism he’d faced for having not done so when Sehwag reached 300 at Multan earlier. I’d like to believe it was a spontaneous acknowledgement from one modern master to another. When Yuvraj fell lbw to Sami, the pair had added 98 runs for the fifth wicket. Dravid had put on 129 runs with Parthiv, 131 with Laxman, and another 131 with Ganguly. Two runs more with Yuvraj and he would have become the second man in the history of the game to have shared four century stands in an innings. The only person to have done so was the PCB’s Special Guest for this Test, Hanif Mohammad, during the mother of all epics, the 16-hour rearguard against West Indies in Barbados in 1957-58. Only after tea, once they had flattened Pakistan out as a rolling pin does dough, did the Indians begin taking risks. Dravid pulled Kaneria and was dropped by Imran Nazir at midwicket; he raced on, with sweeps and magnificent inside-out drives, one of which soared for a six. With the total on 593, and his own score on 270, of which 136 had come from 181 balls on this day, as compared to 134 from 314 before, he pulled out the reverse sweep from outside leg stump to Imran Farhat’s part-time spin, testament both to the adventure he had added to his game and his refusal to play for a milestone ahead of the team cause. He was bowled. Thus it was at quarter to four on the day recognised by the Islamic calendar as the 24 th in the month of Safar that Indian cricket’s longest batting journey came to end. Of all Dravid’s tours de force this was the most physical. Life carried on, Pakistani bowlers tried and tired, batsmen came and went and hit beautiful strokes, but Dravid had the runs. Twelve hours and 20 minutes says plenty, but not everything: apart from the intervals, Dravid had spent all but one ball of virtually three full days on the field. This was especially challenging because he is prone to losing fluids much quicker than the next sportsman. Dravid always takes measures. In Perth a few months ago he had visited a specialist, who ran a series of tests and prescribed him a fluid mix that would aid his rehydration process. And he was, according to John Wright, “in the top 10% when it comes to physical training”, which meant that in a squad of 16 he was number one or two. India’s was not an over-performance. It was a natural progression. Five of the six highest scores in their history had come in the last three years. Four of them had arrived in the last five months, each outside India. Since Sehwag joined the ranks, in late 2001, the quintet of Sehwag, Dravid, Tendulkar, Laxman and Ganguly had between them piled on 31 centuries and 44 fifties in 30 Tests. Their combined average in this time was 55.85. Twenty of these were away Tests – and not a dud among
them: tours to Australia, South Africa, England, New Zealand, West Indies and Pakistan and nowhere else. For prolificacy, for seizing moments, for always having a man, or two, for every occasion, the quintet could not match the buccaneering band of contemporary Australians, but what they had achieved was to turn India, despite their limited bowling attack, into contenders in any part of the world. Finally. If Ganguly’s and Wright’s appointments as captain and coach were significant steps in this regard, Dravid’s ascension to batting leader was equally so. Indeed, it is not possible to dissociate the events. Ganguly’s first Test as captain was against Bangladesh in November 2000 (Wright assumed his position one match later), a time when Indian cricket had hit something close to rock bottom. Dravid himself was in a slump in the period leading up to it. In the space of seven Tests his average had plummeted fro m 55 to a “mer e” 47, and he did not manage a sing le fifty in those 14 innings. In the 41 Tests and 41 months between then and now, Dravid averag ed 70, eight points clear of Tendulkar in the same phase. He strung together 16 fifties, three of which were nineties and another three eighties. He constructed 11 centuries, five of them doubles, each bigger than the previous, more than any Indian had ever done in an entire career, let alone in three and a half years. Not one series passed without bearing the mark of the Maestro, and rare was the Test win, home or away, that remained untouched by his work. He was there in Kolkata with VVS, scripting among the most dramatic turnarounds the game has known. He was there with Ganguly five months later in Kandy, making a long fourth-innings chase against Murali and cohorts, the longest successful one there has been by a visiting team in that country. He was there in Port Elizabeth three months later, saving a Test a day after Mike Denness had infamously hauled the lot over the coals. He was there in Georgetown four months down the line, averting a follow-on while popping painkillers to soothe a jaw that had swollen to one side as though with a gulab jamun. He was there one Test later in Port-of-Spain, etching out more than a hundred low-key runs over two innings in a famous victory. He was there, four months on, entrenched at Trent Bridge for the final four sessions, saving still another Test. He was there at Headingley in the next Test, taking blow after blow to the body on a bowler’s pitch under glowering skies, sculpting one of the great defensive innings in one of the great Indian wins. He was there, unforgettably, in Adelaide, batting, batting, batting in a trance to victory. He had been India’s batsman of the 2000s as they had unfolded so far, and his had been as significant an extended run as there had been by any batsman anywhere since the second war. Watching Dravid is an inspiration because at a most visible level Dravid’s lessons are the lessons of life. After a point all achievement is appetite. In 1997-98 he scored fifties in six successive Test innings. Five years later, he scored hundreds in four successive Test innings. How much can you keep biting off? How much can you keep chewing? Rahul Bhattacharya is a writer based in Delhi. He covered India’s 2003-04 tour of Pakistan for Wisden Asia Cricket magazine, and later wrote a book about it: Pundits from Pakistan
Three of the four wickets Dravid t ook bowling in ODIs were of South Africans Shaun Pollock, Gary Kirsten and Lance Klusener. The only other batsman he dismiss ed in ODIs was Saeed Anwar.
[ 18 ]
The Kingston grind SIDDHARTHA VAIDYANATHAN
Rahul Dravid’s twin fifties at Sabina Park led India to their first series win in the Caribbean in 35 ears. They were constructed on a spiteful pitch that saw 22 single-digit scores in a game that finished in three days. Dravid’s technical mastery was unmatched. His defence was watertight and he adapted his technique to the occasion.
81 and 68 v West Indies, fo urth Test, Kingston, 2006
I t was the first morning of the final Test. The series was up for grabs. Sabina Park was a giant
construction site – the stadium was being readied for the 2007 World Cup. Helmeted workers sat atop scaffolds, rows of empty charcoal-coloured bucket seats alternated with heaps of rubble. Around 2000 filled the stadium. Some Indians in the George Headley Stand waved flags; some West Indians tooted horns. A Jamaica flag fluttered above the pavilion. Jerome Taylor, the local boy, was running red hot. India were 3 for 2. Both opener s were out. Rahul Dravid walked in at No. 4, where he had batted all series in Sachin Tendulkar’s absence. A local photographer, peering through his lens, asked about the Britannia sticker on Dravid’s bat. He was told about a biscuit-making company in Bangalore, Dravid’s hometown, where it was close to dinner time. It took 19 overs for Dravid’s, and India’s, first four, a straight drive off Dwayne Bravo. The rest was attrition. Corey Collymore, the most economical bowler all series, probed outside off. Pedro Collins applied pressure with maidens. Taylor exploded: ratcheting the pace above 140kph, he forced hesitant pro ds. None fazed Dravid. Two and a half months earlier, in an unprecedented decision, the BCCI had named Dravid Test and one-day captain until the 2007 World Cup. This decision, apparently a move towards stability, provoked criticism. Dravid’s extended tenure in the ODI format was understandable – the side was in the middle of a record-breaking run – but his Test results were questionable. Dravid had won a home series against Sri Lanka and lost a series in Pakistan. Within five days of the landmark decision, he would lose a Test to England, finishing a home series 1-1 and provoking further censure of his longterm appointment. The Caribbean tour had begun on a high note: a Dravid hundred won the first ODI in Kingston – India’s 17th successful chase on the trot. But that was the acme: India lost the series 1-4 and the pressur e on Dravid intensified with every game. India were expected to dominate the Tests. They came within one wicket of winning in Antigua, were defied by rain in St Lucia, and by a confident West Indies batting line-up in St Kitts. Now in Kingston their chances hung by a thread. India resumed after lunch at 29 for 2. VVS Laxman fell in the first over. Yuvraj Singh and Mohammad Kaif were floored by snorters: 78 for 5. Dravid was lucky to survive a menacing short
one from Taylor, the ball flying off his bat’s edge, grazing the fingertips of gully. He responded by pulling Taylor for two successive fours, both in front of square. His wrists rolled, his body flowing in a smooth arc in the follow-through. Batting got easier midway through the day. Anil Kumble, adept at angling his bat, proved an able ally. Dravid punished width and was quick on the drive, a long stride turning full-length deliveries into half-volleys. Chris Gayle tried offspin; Dravid lifted him over mid-on. Shivnarine Chanderpaul tried leg spin; Dravid paddle-swept for four. Had the pitch flattened out? Joseph Charles Morris, fondly called Charlie, was the head groundsman at Sabina Park. He began working there in 1959. His trademark pitches had a glossy veneer on the surface. He made the fiery one for the Test against India in 1976, when West Indies unleashed a pace battery so intimidating that Bishan Bedi declared the fir st innings with six wickets down. The pitch was re-laid in the early ‘90s and, according to Charlie, lost most of its bounce. He had seen signs of a revival, though – especially when Steve Harmison rolled West Indies over for 47 in 2004 – but wished for more consistency. On the eve of the Test, Charlie guaranteed the surface would help bounce. Brian Lara, the West Indies captain, said it would help spinners. Dravid called it a “slow wicket”, where the ball would “stop on the batsmen initially”. Kumble played on to a short ball from Bravo: 184 for 7. Five overs later Collymore lured Dravid into feathering one outside off. The wicketkeeper pouched the edge. Dravid later compared his 81 to the 76 he made on a windy fir st morning in Wellington in 2002. India folded for 200. Only once had a team drawn a Test after making 200 or less in the first innings in Kingston. No team had won. It was history or bust. Dravid had been there before. Nine years before, on his first tour to the Caribbean, the two teams had played out four draws. The series was decided on a manic morning in the third Test, when India failed to chase 120 on a Bar bados snakepit. In 2002 they had squandered another series after batting collapses in Barbados and Jamaica – a harrowing defeat: the series would have finished 1-1 if India’s lower order had held on for half an hour before torrential rain lashed the island for 11 days. Now, after three drawn Tests, Dravid was back in Kingston. Another series was on the line. Lara said West Indies needed to aim to bat for two days. They lasted a little over a session. Fro m 72 for 3 they shrivelled to 103 all out. The team faced 33.3 overs – 14 balls fewer than Dravid did in his innings. India bowled with discipline – Harbhajan Singh took five wickets in 4.3 overs – but some of the shot selection was baffling. The pitch was unpredictable; the batting more so. India led by 97. Their openers walked in with rain in the air. By the fourth over they had both walked back: 6 for 2. Dravid took strike with the ground bathed in sunshine. There was a wide leg slip in place. Taylor banged a short one in, then another, then angled one onto Dravid’s pads. The delicate edge flew between the wicketkeeper and leg slip. In his next over Taylor again fired one onto Dravid’s legs. It clipped the pads and produced a woody sound. Denesh Ramdin fumbled the catch. Taylor thought he almost had a wicket. Ther e was drama in the air. From then on, Dravid reeked assurance. Bat met ball with sweet tocks. He juddered pull shots in front of square. A regal swivel that raced to the cover fence took him past 9000 Test runs. His drives
were extensions of his defence: you saw the high elbow; the bat pointed at fourth slip in the stance, and finished finished ramr od straight. Dravid stood still before the bowler delivered, then he mostly went back and moved across to defend. Sometimes – and here lay his genius – he simply got back and chose not to move across, creating width for a cut shot. Here was a batsman at the peak of his prowess. All afternoon he was beaten beaten once. o nce. Collymore cleaned up Laxman and Yuvraj. Collins got Kaif to play on. Seventy-six for 5. India led by 173. MS Dhoni added 46 with Dravid, before missing an incutter that kept a shade low. With his feet rooted to the crease, Dhoni stood no chance. Two overs later Taylor sent a replica delivery down to Dravid. It caught a thick inside edge and dribbled. Dravid shook his head, determined. The next ball kept low again, except this time it held its line. Dravid moved forward, his bat came down straight. Taylor stood transfixed. It was his last over of the day. The best bowler in the match knew he was defeated. There was no way past Britannia. India ended the day 225 ahead. Dravid batted out another 36 deliveries the next morning before he was bowled off a shooter. He walked back to heartfelt applause. Back in the dressing room, he cursed himself fo r not getting the bat bat down in time. time. West Indies were set 269. They went down swinging. A festive Sunday was lit up by cameos from Ramnaresh Sarwan, Bravo and Ramdin. Kumble had the final say, his sixth wicket wrapping up the game in the penultimate over. India had won a series in the Caribbean for the first time in 35 years. Dravid was chaired around the ground. Groundsman Charlie shed copious tears. This was India’s first significant away series win in two years. Dravid went on to lead India to a series win in England. Despite memorable results in Tests (including India’s first Test win in South Africa) his captaincy was defined by India being knocked out in the first round of the 2007 World Cup. For Dravid the batsman, Kingston 2006 was a high point. His next significant innings was a year and a half later, on another challenging surface, in Perth, leading to another historic Test win. Dravid returned to Jamaica in 2011. Faced with another unpredictable pitch, he responded with a match-winning, and eventually series-winning, century. For those who missed his batting in 2006, he obliged with an encore, showing that history does occasionally repeat itself. journalist based in New York. He covered India’s 2006 2006 tour of West Indies for ESPNcrici ESPNcricinfo nfo Siddhartha Vaidyanathan is a journalist
Dravid was never dismissed for a first-ball duck in Tests Tests.. He was, though, run out for 0 without facing a ball once: in in the Lahore Test of 2004.
[ 19 ]
A part of his best self SHARDA UGRA
India’s 2011 tour of England provided more occasion than others in recent years to drag out the familiar clichés about lone bulwarks and defiant solos: Rahul Dravid scored 461 runs in the Tests, nearly 200 more than any of his team-mates, at twice the average. The finest of his three hundreds came at Trent Bridge.
117 v England, England, second Test, Nottingham Not tingham,, 201 2011 1
T he grey skies at the start of the Nottingham Test had defined the first day as what English cricket
folk call a “bowling day”. As the clouds parted on the Saturday and sunlight flowed over Trent Bridge, naturally it was the advent of that other phenomenon: the “batting day”. For this Test match, though, those descr iptions were ir r elevant. elevant. In ter terms ms of o f batsmanship, the the first fir st two two days have both been, quite simply, Dr Dr avid days. The wicket at Trent Bridge is known for its propensity to aid swing. The theories behind that phenomenon include the Duke’s ball, the new stands built at the ground, the airflow around them, the neighbouring river Trent, the sky, the clouds, the weather, everything and nothing. Wherever the swing came from, Rahul Dravid’s response to it, and his second Test century of the tour, came from skill, memory and cussedness. In the toughest conditions of the series so far, Dravid has come through as the toughest batsman on either side. In In passages of play when the the bowling has been unrelenting and dur ing spells when the the ball has darted, jagged, leapt and thrown flying kisses at the bat’s edge, Dravid has been instinct and calculation in perfect per fect sync. With this 34 th century, he has now drawn level with Sunil Gavaskar and Brian Lara, to go with his No. 2 spot on the list of all-time Test run scorers. If there ever was a poll conducted to identify the most hardy and considerate international batsmen of this age, Dravid has a very good chance of topping it. In this series already he has done most of what he is known for: opened, batted at No. 3, kept wicket, fielded at slip – and, he will say with his droll humour, also dropped a few. Asked, after his century, about his ability to bowl, he laughed and said, “If I bowl, my shoulder will come out of my back. back .” On this tour of England, it is a shoulder his team has leaned heavily upon. Of all the India batsmen, he has adjusted the the quickest in England, loo ked the the most mo st composed, compo sed, and scor ed the most heavily. heavily. India India still find themselves gasping because he has had very litt l ittle le company co mpany.. He was out in an outrageously flashy manner here, a wild, short-game cut off Tim Bresnan, as out of place in his innings as pink hot pants would be at an awards presentation. Given that his partners had been unpredictable in the last ten minutes, and four wickets had fallen for six runs, it was hard to blame blame him him for g oing for broke. It is worth remembering that his first-innings century at Lord’s had been rendered paltry because of
a poor effort from the rest. So maybe if Dravid is seen attempting reverse hits or Dilscoops at The Oval, we’ll know how the Indian batting has gone for the rest of the series. After Harbhajan Singh was out, Dravid said he wanted to go for the runs, the extra 20-25 runs that could add up at the end. Essentially he wanted to borrow from Stuart Broad and Graeme Swann’s ninth-wicket approach on Friday. Dravid’s second century of the tour had begun with a bruising hour of play on Friday evening. He was hit on his wrist, jammed in the fingers, worked over. He kept batting through two more sessions, sometimes hobbling, sometimes cramping but always pushing forward. He was hit on the wrist again this morning, and after the initial spasm, his hand lost sensation for a few overs. What Dravid never lost lo st was was the purpose purpo se of o f what he he had to do: do : bat one ball at a time. time. In his epic innings – and he’s one of the few who has produced regular epics as against memorable stanzas – Dravid can often bat like a clock that ticks reliably. Tap. Single. Back again. Forward. Defend. Dot ball. Beaten. Dot ball. Forget. Off stump. Leave. Dot ball. Late. Nudge. Two. Soft hands. Kill. Dot ball. Width. Cut. Four. Ball after ball, over after over. He called Nottingham one of his better hundreds because of the “hard-working, fighting” aspects of it that he enjoyed. He said the conditions in Headingley back in 2002, when India batted first on a green track to put up a total that set up victory, were tougher, but the bowling in 2011 was far more demanding and precise. He emerged with VVS Laxman on a bright morning and within three overs they cracked four consecutive boundaries. Two each, off rare lapses from James Anderson and Broad, that erased the dread that had built up last evening among the small gathering of vociferous Indian fans at the ground. The partnership hummed along like it always has, at varying paces. The two men farmed the attack cleverly, Dravid facing Broad and Laxman against Anderson, with few singles, several twos, and the quick boundary boundar y at a juicy sighter. Laxman melted the conditions – driving, pulling and cutting savagely to score his second halfcentury of the series. At the other end, Dravid was in his own bubble of concentration, found often at the non-striker’s end shadow-practising the leave as much as he did the forward defence. Broad later said Dravid’s wicket had been his favourite in a day when they fell in a clatter and had included his stunning hat-trick. Dr Dr avid’s game is based o n technical classicism and attached attached to it is the awareness of how valuable a wicket his can be. Unlike items in the English retail market right now, Dravid’s wicket in this series is not going to be offered at a discount. In Nottingham there was measured driving, his runs earned by tucking balls away off the pads, countering the swing by playing the ball late and easing it through to third man. Closer to his century, the new ball nearing, Dravid saw the slower bowlers and the sun come on, and decided to show off the rest of his repertoire of shots: a back-foot cover drive, a glide through slips. Swann, in particular, was taken apart, going for 42 in 37 balls to Dravid. If Dravid’s batting in this series were to be set to music, it could be to Elgar possibly: both pomp and circumstance. This is his last tour of England, a country where he has always enjoyed playing his cricket. He has scored five centuries here (average 73.18) and soaked in its best traditions. His grim, beautiful fights in these two Tests for India have also carried with them gratitude for the grounds he is playing playing on.
In Nottingham as he tried to push his team ahead in the contest, run by run, inch by inch, he was also giving the crowd his farewell masterpiece. Dismissed in an uncharacteristic manner, he walked back through stretching shadows and the golden light of a dipping sun. Having shaken off his annoyance at his dismissal, he raised his bat to all sections of Trent Bridge as he neared the gate. Then he disappeared up the steps into a pavilion that is 125 years old, with an honours board that will have his name up a second time. When Rahul Dravid leaves Nottingham, he will leave a part of his best self here. ESPNcricinfo senior editor Sharda Ugra covered India’s 2011 tour of England. This piece was first published on the site on July 30, 2011
Of the 11 triple-century stands by Indians in Tests, Dravid has been involved in four, which is the highest. Tendulkar and Laxman have been involved in three each.
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‘There are no easy catches in the slips’ INTERVIEW BY NAGRAJ GOLLAPUDI
December 2010
How deeply were you interested in slip fielding to begin with? I have never considered myself a natural slip fielder, but I worked hard on it, I practised it, and I have taken my fair share of them. Growing up, in my Under-15 days I used to be a wicketkeeper, and that carried on till I was 17. Then I started focusing on my batting and moved on. I got into the Ranji team quite early, and generally, as a youngster the first place you are put in is at bat-pad and short leg, so you had to work on your close-in fielding straightaway. GR Viswanath was the chairman of selectors in Karnataka back then and we did a lot of slip catching early in the morning. I started to really enjoy slip catching because it was very competitive. We had these competitive games with each other as Vishy sent catches our way. With a lot of younger kids coming into the team, we would try to outdo each other. Once I was in the Indian team, I was at silly point and short leg for about four years in the beginning. I started enjoying it by working on the reflexes and catching. Once I became a bit senior – if I could call it that – I moved to the slips. It was a natural pr og ression.
How did you figure out which was the best spot for yo u in the slip cordon? When John Wright came in [as coach] he was very keen that we get specialist fielding positions and stick to one position. I identified first slip as a good one for myself. Mark Waugh believed that slip catching comes naturally, that you can’t be taught by coaches. What do you t hink are the essentials of a goo d slip fielder? Firstly, you should enjoy it. You should want to be there. It is a position where you’ve got to concentrate the whole day, where you ar e always in the game. Then you’ve got to take a lot of catches. There is no substitute to taking a lot of a catches as a youngster if you want to do slip catching – you’ve got to catch, catch, catch. And more than doing the normal stuff, you have to vary your catching – you’ve got to take some catches with the tennis ball, you’ve got to take some closer, some further away. One of the important things I have found with slip catching is, you need to have relaxed hands. When an edge is coming towards you, the last thing you want to do is tighten up or freeze or snatch at the ball.
What about the position – where and how you stand? Is there an ideal one? Bobby Simpson spent some time with us [the former Australia captain was a consultant to the Indian team during the 1999 World Cup]. He was coach of a team that had what I consider probably the best slip-fielding cordons ever. Mark Taylor and Mark Waugh were the best slippers I ever saw – they were incredible. He [Simpson] came in and altered the way I stood in the slips, in terms of positioning. That made a big difference to me. He got me to take the weight on my instep rather than standing flat-footed. What it does is, you can transfer weight and quickly move in any dir ection.
Each one of us has a unique body position, so you have to work out what is comfortable for you. I know some who spread their feet a little mor e, some a little less, and they catch as well as anyone that I know. In the end, you’ve just got to catch.
What about hand position? Is it always better to have your preferred hand taking the ball, with the other one wrapped around as a support? The fact that I never thought about it means I am not sure if I do all that. I just catch the ball. I do have big hands and that does help in slip catching. I don’t think you have time to think which hand should come on top; it just comes naturally. You mentioned practising with different kinds of ball. Can you tell us a little more about that? It gives your hand a different feeling, of a different object. Like, catching one day with a tennis ball, then another day with a slig htly hard plasticine ball, then another day with a softer ball – you can even catch with a golf ball. It just makes it more interesting. If you continue taking catches in the regular fashion, it could get bor ing and r epetitive, but if you can just vary it with differ ent balls, with different angles, it could be mo re fun. It is all about fun. Do you watch the bat, the batsman or t he bowler’s hand? I just focus on the ball. As soon as the bowler runs in and as soon as he hits the delivery stride, I switch on and start focusing on the ball in a r elaxed fashion. As for reading the hand, if it is a spinner, like Anil [Kumble] or Harbhajan [Singh], you are reading their hands, you are watching their hands – what they are bowling. How different a challenge is it, standing to a spinner compared to a fast bowler? Not a massive differ ence. With the fast bowlers the ball comes at you a lo t quicker but you ar e further away. With the spinners you don’t have that time to react because of the short distance. Then again, it doesn’t come at the same pace. How do you decide where to stand? From a spinner’s perspective, in India it was never easy for me to judge where to stand: how far forward, how far back. Because on Indian wickets the ball does not carry as much as abroad. That is true of slip fielding in general. I wouldn’t say only for spinners, even for a fast bowler that holds true. A lot of foreign players have pointed that out to me. In Australia and South Africa the bounce is quite consistent, quite even, and you can stand way back. But in India, since there is not much carry, the edges do not travel to you straight, so you get sort of tempted and dragged forward all the time. And it is very difficult to know exactly how far forward you need to go. So it is just a judgement thing, based on the wicket, the bounce, who is bowling, which spell they are bowling, the condition of the ball… So you’ve just got to keep varying. There is no perfect place to stand. What sort of pressure are you under as a slip fielder? As I said earlier, you must enjoy being a slip fielder. Everyone in the slips dr ops catches at times. You are putting yourself in a position where you are seen, but you must enjoy the fact that you want to be able to make a play. One of the great joys of being a slip fielder who takes a catch is that you are able to contribute to the bowler’s success. Yes, you are putting yourself in the firing line if you stuff it up, but you must want to be in that position to make a differ ence, and reco gnise that sometimes you might make mistakes. There are no easy catches in the slips. But as long as you have practised well and put in enough time, you are fine. What is the most challenging thing about standing in the slips in Test cricket? Concentration. At times you will get nothing the whole day, but suddenly in the 110 th or 112th over of
the match, a sharp chance comes along. You’ve got to be ready and alert to be able to react. So it is about the concentration, about doing it day in, day out, over after over, ball after ball. One thing that could help is having a set routine, a pattern where you know exactly what you are go ing to do each ball. That keeps you in that space to do that.
You spoke o f switching on. What about switching o ff between deliveries? It is very similar to batting. Slip catching does help your batting in terms of your routines. Between balls I talk to my co-slip fielders. You talk sometimes about the game situation, but lots of other times about various other topics, not cricket. That keeps you focused, keeps you relaxed. Like me and [VVS] Laxman talk about kids, house construction, plumbers, electricians, running errands. You cannot keep talking cricket the whole day – you have to switch off. But as soon as the bowler starts running in, you switch back on. Could you talk about your two best catches? In the 2001 Test series against Australia I caught Mark Waugh down the leg side. It was not a slip catch strictly – it was at backward short leg off Harbhajan in Chennai. It was a critical time in the match, during the third innings. It went down the leg side and flew to my right. I reacted instinctively and grabbed at it. The ball bounced off initially but I was able to hold on to it. It had come very quickly. We had practised for such a catch because we had recog nised Mark Waugh was someone who played Harbhajan really well off his legs. And on a wicket that bounced a bit, we knew one or two edges might come and we should be in a position to catch them. The fact that it was a tight game, that Waugh was already 50-plus – in that context it was a huge catch and one I really cherish. Australia collapsed after that, so it was a goo d catch. The second one is once again against Australia, in Adelaide in the 2004 series: Damien Martyn against Sachin [Tendulkar], again the third innings. Sachin was spinning the ball a long way and Martyn drove at one and I stuck my right hand out and caught it. It was a reflexive catch, more instinctive. With such catches, a lot of the time, if you are able to stick your hand out, you have done well. It happens so quickly – sometimes they stick, sometimes they don’t. At times the ball just grazes your hand or pops out, but you have to put your hand in a position where yo u at least try. Against fast bowlers, the one that is memorable is catching Ricky Ponting off Ishant Sharma, at third slip in Perth [in 2008]. The ball was flying across me. There was a bit of extra bounce in the wicket and Ponting played at it, but I moved quickly to my right and r eacted quickly to ho ld the catch. That’s what I was saying earlier – one of the advantages of standing in grounds like Perth is that you have distance, and because of the bounce you have a lot of time. I have always enjoyed standing in the slips in places like Australia and South Africa because the bounce is true. You know you can stand back. The ball carries. It comes quickly but at a nice height and at a comfortable pace.
Who are the best slip fielders you saw? [Mohammad] Azharuddin and Laxman from India. Andrew Flintoff was superb for England. As for Australia, Taylor, Mark Waugh, Shane Warne and Ricky Ponting. Mahela Jayawardene has lovely hands and is goo d. What happens when you drop a catch. Do you let it affect you? At some level it does affect you. You are disappointed about letting the bowler down because he has been putting in so much effort to create an opportunity after a lot of planning and thinking, and you have not been able to grab on to the chance. But you’ve got to quickly move on, because the worst
thing you can do is to be lingering on it and not be in the right state of mind to grab another opportunity that comes along. With experience you lear n to move on, accept it and try and get the next one.
Do you remember all your catches? I can’t remember every one off hand, but if you show me the scorecard I will remember. Nagraj Gollapudi is an assistant editor at ESPNcricinfo, where this interview was first published on December 28, 2010, when Dravid took his 200th catch in Test cricket
Two Indians have effected 200-plus ODI dismissals as fielder or wicketkeeper. Dravid is one, with 210. Only MS Dhoni, with 252 dismissals, has more.
The man
He batted as a river runs, at an immemorial pace. You could tune in to an innings of his at any time and be unsure whether he had batted six hours or six minutes. He carried himself with the same easy dignity in success or failure, in India or abroad. Gideon Haigh, A sportsman of model decorum, page 1 45
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Dignity, grace, conscience ROHIT BRIJNATH
A t the core of the great athlete often resides a self-centred animal. He is lit up by the spotlight; the
rest of the world falls into his shadow. Once, a former cricketer, his nationality irrelevant, dined at my house and was staggeringly oblivious to my other guests. He was prepared to be questioned; he simply did not have any questions for them. As if they were the distant, faceless cr owd in a stadium. It is here, for me, that Rahul Dravid found his point of difference. Life intrigued him, yours included. When he came to Singapore once, he charmed my friends (one gave him batting advice; he smiled). What are you reading, he’d ask. What do you think, he’d query. Not about cr icket, but tennis, toughness, politics. He’d linger in bookshops, stroll into theatres, sit in wildlife parks. One year he opted to go and learn from a visual skills specialist in South Africa; last summer, he drove to Chelsea FC to wander through their Mind Room. From his wide interests emerged cricket’s most interesting man. He wore polished shoes but never an aura. In a world of gods, he preferred his humanness, an unadorned man battling his own imperfections with a low-key dignity. He was forever conscious of the families he represented (his own, the team, the fans, the game at large) and owned an authentic decency we crave in athletes but rar ely find. My mother is not given at all to cricket watching, yet she sent me an email after his retirement press confer ence that included the words “poised”, “grace”, “dignity”. If the old-fashioned among us have a quaint notion of what the athlete should represent, then Dravid met it for us. Greatness can be worn gently. A man can stay true for 16 years to the idea that desire and sportsmanship, ambition and etiquette, are not virtues in conflict. We needed a reminder that even amidst the over-indulgence and over-worship of modern sport, a man need not lose himself. Dravid was precocious that way, always the grown-up cricketer. He had a conscience, and in a way he became ours. There is for me an irony in the mourning for him in a time when Virat Kohli is worshipped. Perhaps we realise what we are losing, perhaps the time of such men has passed. He was teased recently that it was fortunate he was not 22, for he would be a misfit: Dravid with his hair gelled, a tattoo of his wife on his forearm, retinue in tow, snarling, is an image both amusing and obscene. Dravid took cricket seriously but not always himself. Or you. During the 1999 World Cup, watching me take a few casual swipes with his bat, he fell off his hotel bed laughing and offered this advice: “Please, don’t ever write about technique.” His batting could be classical, yet he never viewed himself as the classical hero. Indeed, the evening after his retirement press conference, he suggested with amusement that his immediate future included “pr actising my new sweep shot with a broom”. I met him first in 1996, a slim young man, shirt tucked in, hair parted; and his method on the field would be as fastidious. He saw the nylon cages of the practice nets as his university and practised like a man pursuing a degree he might never earn. There, and on the field, it was the discovery of himself,
this uniquely private moment, that he most relished. For him – and you’d groan when he repeated his favourite word – it was about the “process”. There were many batsmen in Rahul Dravid. The worst one once found him the most applause. In some forgotten one-dayer, he smashed a quick fifty (these very words must make him shiver), and he oked that he received more handshakes for it than for anything before. Of course, he could be a picture of balanced harmony, his shots all refined architecture, and this was becoming. But the cussed Dravid, a man of team cause not crowd, was my favourite, playing to his own scholarly sheet music. Laxman offered me art, Sehwag liberation, Tendulkar consistent genius, but Dravid taught us that the ability to reassure is a gift. For such a neat man, he loved an ugly scrap. Runs might emerge in unsightly dribbles – sometimes it was as if to be uninhibited was an act of immodesty for him – but he’d keep going. A leave, a block, a block, a leave, and this should have been boring – and well, yes, sometimes it was – except, by the end he’d built a lead, or rescued a situation, or offered India a winning chance, and you’d look at this man, shirt bound by sweat, ferocious in his concentration, and ust think, bloody hell. Struggle, in all its for ms, was his hymn. He wanted to win, and if he took defeat manfully he also did so painfully. On the night after India exited the 2007 Wor ld Cup under his captaincy, on the phone he sounded as if he was dying. I liked him for this and for his willingness to discuss his own and sufficient imperfections. Because he wouldn’t flinch from honesty and you could challenge him on his thinking as captain or get him to laugh at his own unhurriedness. Because he understood talent is only lent to you for a while and that only ceaseless industry can allow for its consistent expression. Because he has a strong sense of himself, for even as kind bloggers would call him “unsung”, he’d say, no, enough has been sung about me. He was more than just a cricketer and it was evident in our meeting in October 2011. He had been invited to a discussion on the sporting mind, at the Bangalore launch of Olympic shooting gold medallist Abhinav Bindra’s autobiog raphy. “No speech, right?” he insisted, for that would mean a month’s dutiful hard labour for him. No, I promised. Only a discussion. Except, on launch day, in the evening, he took me aside. “I’d like to make a short speech, is that okay?” And so he did, a charming, generous introduction about Bindra and his virtues and the challenge of the Olympics. He is nearly ten years older than the shooter and far more celebrated, but this was not his moment, he wanted Bindra to have the sun, and being in the shadows held no fear for him anyway. It was not Dravid at his best, it was simply just Dravid being himself. Rohit Brijnath is a senior correspondent at the Straits Times in Singapore and the co-author of the autobiography o bhinav Bindra. This piece was first published in Mint Lounge on March 10, 2012
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A sportsman of model decorum GIDEON HAIGH
R ahul Dravid is a thinking cricketer. But one person I learned that he does not spend a lot of time
thinking thinking about is… Rahul Dravid.
It was shortly after the Boxing Day Test, and we were having dinner with a mutual friend near my home, at a spaghetti joint in Lygon Street, Carlton. As happens when you’re in distinguished sporting company, the subject of conversation turned to setting down some thoughts about that career when it ended – as Dr avid announced yesterday it was. Test cricket’s second-tallest scorer, and the man who faced more Test deliveries than any other, would seem to have a tale to tell. Dravid did not agree. What, after all, had he done? He had had a comfortable comfo rtable upbringing upbringing,, a goo g ood d educat education, a lo ving marr mar r iage and… well, well, yes, he’d he’d made mor e than than 24,000 inter international national r uns with with 48 hundreds, but what what of it? i t? Dravid had recently read Andre Agassi’s autobiography, Open. Open. Now that was was a story. Drugs, girls, money mo ney,, triumph, disaster. By compariso compar ison, n, Dr Dr avid said ser iously iousl y, he had hardly lived at all. While it seems almost churlish to dispute such a commonsensical self-estimation, on this occasion let’s quietly beg to differ. For most of his 15 years at the top, Dravid was the most immaculate cricketer in the game, a batsman of preternatural serenity and a sportsman of model decorum. That wonderful Indian cricket writer Sujit Mukherjee once said of Dravid’s great antecedent Vijay Hazare that his innings had “no beginning and no end”, because “whether his score was 2 or 20 or 200, he [Hazare] was assessing the bowling with the same exacting concern that characterised his every moment m oment at the the crease”. cr ease”. The same was true o f Dravid. He batted batted as a river ri ver r uns, at an immemor ial pace. You You co uld tune into into an innings of his at any time and be unsure whether he had batted six hours or six minutes. He carried himself with the same easy dignity in success or failure, in India or abroad: unlike the other members of his country’s prestigious batting elite of Tendulkar, Sehwag, Laxman and Ganguly, he boasted a higher average away than home. Dravid’s decision to retire will not come as a great surprise to those who watched him struggle through the Australian summer. You arrive at a point in contemplation of any great batsman dealing with poor form where rational explanation no longer suffices. Some little advantage has been lost, some indefinable aura has faded. Bowlers sense it: they attack where they used to be content to keep quiet. Fielders sense it: they crouch in eager expectation of catches, and relax in confidence of accepting them. Such was the case with with Dravid in 2011-12, 2011-12, and he is too perceptive not to have sensed it, despite despite his valiant str str uggles. ugg les. He He was, as ever, a model g uest, his his Bradman Br adman Or ation being quite possibly the the season’s seaso n’s outstanding outstanding Indian performance. It is also characteristic that Dravid waited until the Australian summer was completely done with before making any announcement; it is in line with his view that individuals are at the
game’s service, not vice versa. Not every cricketer’s cricket faithfully reflects his personality, but Dravid’s would seem to. In company, he thinks before speaking, gives his interlocutors undivided attention, is unhurried and unflappable. That evening, dining al fresco, we were perfectly at the mercy of passing rubberneckers Every two minutes, it seemed, someone would ask Dravid for an autograph, want him to pose for a photo, or simply stop to gawk. g awk. Even the the chef came out to shake his hand. Dravid gave every petitioner perfect partial attention, not once growing flustered, not once losing the thread of a conversation – dealing with them rather like balls wide of off stump, giving them their due but no more. There was, I realised after a while, a well-honed technique to it. Dravid acquiesced to each request politely but straightforwardly, volunteering nothing in addition. People got the message; it was impressive. Various subjects were discussed that evening, which it seems impolite to divulge, and may even be unenlightening to, because Dravid is so reticent about his career and so respectful of opponents. About one opponent, though, he was forthcoming, and that was Ricky Ponting. He recalled being accosted by Ponting, whom he hardly knew and had barely conversed with, during Australia’s tour of India in 2010. “I want to talk to you,” Ponting insisted. Dravid wonder ed what he had done wr ong; ong ; on o n the contrar y, Ponting wanted to to tell him what he was doing r ight. Dravid was was having having a poor series; Ponting urg ed him to to hang in there. there. “I “I know know you’re you’r e not making runs, and I know there’s probably a bit of pressure on you at the moment,” Ponting told Dravid. “But “But let me tell you: every time you come co me in, I tell tell the guys that that you loo k like you’r e go ing to get runs today. You’ve been getting out, but I reckon there are some big scores around the corner for you.” Dravid was moved by the grace of Ponting’s gesture – as indeed were we, his companions that night, to hear of it. He went and proved Ponting right, too, enjoying in 2011 the second-most prolific calendar calendar year of o f his Test career. career. Just over a week after our dinner, Ponting dived headlong for his crease at the SCG, just beating a throw thro w and achieving his fi r st Test centur century y in nearly near ly two two years. years . It It was was noticeable no ticeable that that while while mo st of the Indian fielders assumed excruciated poses, hands on heads, looking martyred, Dravid moved in from mid-off clapping appreciatively, and perhaps also gratefully. You would think that having a cricketer play at international level for more than 15 years might conduce to a little succession planning; this being Indian cricket, you would think wrongly. Nobody stands out in this Indian line-up as an inheritor of Dravid’s mantle. His retirement will leave the same breach br each in his team as it would have done a decade ago . All the same, there is perhaps no modern cricketer better equipped intellectually and temperamentally to make a contribution to the game’s governance and direction. Dravid’s greatest impact on cr icket might lie ahead of him. And And that would be a stor y worth wor th telling. telling. Gideon Haigh is an author and cricket historian, whose writing has been featured, among other places, on ESPNcricinfo, in the Guardian, and Guardian, and the Australian the Australian (where (where this piece was first published)
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The reason I got married JARROD KIMBER KIMBER
I ’ve always hoped there is an alternate universe where Rahul Dravid is the man, the best batsman in
the world and the guy that everyone wishes they could be. In that world everything he does or says is gospel. When he bats, the whole world, every single country, stops and sighs. His forward defence is the sole reason for world peace. It’s as if before him there was no reason to live. Laws are rewritten for him, ice-cream is named after him, and when he finally retires from cricket he takes over the whole wor ld as a unanimously elected benevolent leader.
That’s the world I wish Dravid lived in, because I think he deserves it and because of the effect he has had on my life. l ife. I can’t wr wr ite about him from fr om a distanced and and analytical analytical perspective. per spective. He once shoo k my hand and it’s it’s because because of him I’m now mar r ied. Even before he touched me and changed my life, Dravid was always there. In the late ‘90s I’d become obsessed with him the way you did in those days, via Cricinfo and newspaper scorecards. When India were touring Australia in 1999-2000 there was much hype over Sachin Tendulkar, so I went out of my way to make sure that every cricket conversation I had about Indian cricket preceding that summer had Dravid’s name in i t. I wouldn’t let him him be for go tten. tten. Dravid aver aged 15.50 that that series. Four years later he came back to Australia as that guy who had stood at the other end while VVS Laxman defeated defeated Austr Austr alia. Australians Australians still didn’t r eally r ate Dr Dr avid, if they thoug thought ht of him at all. Before the 2003-04 series India were playing Victoria at the MCG in a warm-up. I convinced my girlfriend to spend the day watching some Indian legends and sit in the sun. It was us and a bunch of Indian students. No one else was stupid enough to watch the third day of a tour match that had fizzled out well before. The “crowd” were there to see Sachin, and so was I, but I also wanted to see Dravid. As the fans slowly left, knowing that the chances of Sachin batting were quite low, my girlfriend begged, abused and did everything short of dragging me out of the ground. Aakash Chopra and Sadagoppan Ramesh batting quite slowly didn’t please her. But I was resolute. I wanted to see Dravid bat. This didn’t please my gir g irlfr lfr iend even a little little bit. But finally I was justified justified as he str ode to the the crease. cr ease. I told told her that that she could say she saw Rahul Rahul Dravid bat in fro nt of a cr owd of 16 people. Dravid was watchful as he faced Victoria’s back-up wicketkeeper for five balls before the match was called a draw. My girlfriend and I broke up shortly afterwards. It probably wasn’t because of that day, but you never know. Recently I read a piece in an Indian newspaper that described Dravid as more English than most English people. But I remember when he was pretty Australian. It was in an IPL match where Dravid had edged to slip and Tendulkar had claimed the catch. You expected Dravid to just walk off. Tendulkar and Dravid probably pr obably know what the the other eats for breakfast and what what Adam Adam Sandler film fil m is the other’s favourite, but here was Dravid, doubting what many people count as the word of god in
India. Not walking. The Australian way of cricket fro m cr icket’s ultimate gentleman. It was br illiant. I am sure many took offence. But for me it showed that even in an IPL match that he might not take seriously, he still wanted to win mor e than anything. Then there was the time I was making a film about Test cricket and luckily, due to our producer’s insistence and good timing, Dravid agreed to appear. I was going to be interviewing Rahul Dravid, the man whose forward defence is tattooed into the memory of every Test cricket lover. That Monday (which was due to be day five of the 2011-12 series against Australia) he shook my hand twice. He turned up and was polite, distinguished and reserved. Exactly what you’d expect of him. It was gentle, and you could barely feel the hand whose silky soft touch guides the ball behind point. Either he was just a man who shook as softly as he catches in the slips or he was put off by our shabby demeanour and questionable aroma. Once on camera, he answered questions the way he bats – thoughtfully, without r ashness. Sometimes he replied with a late verbal defensive shot, and other times he answered with an elegantly punched oral drive. But when we spoke, he didn’t treat us like the disgusting men we so clearly were. He has this way about him that makes you feel like he’s on yo ur side. The second handshake came after the interview. It was completely different fro m the fir st – this was the handshake of a man who clearly liked the questions he’d answered and was happy we were making the film. It was firm, more like he slapped our hands and then held on, giving a firm enough shake. And he didn’t just do it to me, he went through our whole crew with the same sort of enthusiastic handshake that makes you feel better about yourself and life in general. I’m not sure any handshake has ever made me feel better. In our own shambolic way, we appeared to have won over one of the keepers of Test cricket’s flame. With one longer-than-he-agreed-to interview and boisterous handshake, Dravid had reinforced to us that we knew what were doing and that we could, in fact, make a film about something as monstrous as Test cricket’s future and present. Sure, we could run out of money, overdose on chips, or even be freakishly killed by some rabid T20 fundamentalist’s aggressive six while we walked, Reservoir Dogs-style, through a park. But Dravid shook our hands like we were doing the right thing. So we have something on our side. Touching me was something, but Dravid didn’t stop there. Rahul Dravid is the reason my wife and I got marr ied. Before meeting me, my wife was a cricket-obsessed nerd, and one day when she was trawling the puke-infested gutters of the interweb, she found her way to my cricket site, cricketwithballs. The piece she read was after a drunken day at the MCG, where I wrote about a torturous innings when Rahul Dravid made three ones off a trillion deliveries, while being dropped 48 times. Dravid had batted like a man who had just been gelded. It was ugly to watch, and the fact that a batsman like that could be given a Bronx cheer for finally getting off the mark was horrible. If Dravid was my do g, I’d have taken him out to the country, and taken a shovel as well. I was pissed off he was opening, I was pissed off he was doing it badly, and mostly I was pissed off that I had to see him like this. To see him like this just left me cold. But it wasn’t the first time Dravid had dragged his carcass around the crease like this. These were
the dark days for Dravid, when he was more than a corpse with pads on, he was a fully kitted-up cadaver. Runs had become sparse and painful for Dravid. On one other occasion when Dravid had struggled in the UK, my future wife had been there, and lived the same sort of horror I had. Seeing my words about Dravid meant she wrote a comment, and we bonded over seeing Dravid at his worst and wishing we hadn’t. Later on we’d get married and she’d slip a ring on my left hand, which is very similar to my right hand, which, years later, shook Dravid’s right hand. Our wedding was at The Oval, the place of Dravid’s last overseas Test century. At the reception the tables were named after cricket grounds. One was the MCG, and we used a photo of Dravid facing a throw-down there. The picture was taken only a couple of days befor e my wife wrote that comment. Rahul Dravid is not my favourite cricketer. He’s not the cricketer I get the most enjoyment from. I know other cricketers far better personally. It might even seem to some that I can only remember the bad days of Dravid’s career. And I suppose I do. But I don’t need to be the one writing about how great a player he was, I’m the one who writes about how this stoic Test champion changed my life by his ver y existence. And for that, and his for ward defence, I say, thank you, Rahul. Jarrod Kim ber is the author of the cricketwithballs blog. On ESPNcricinfo, he writes the Cricket Sadist Hour blog and is one of the Two Chucks on the video show of the same nam e
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The money moment SAMIR CHOPRA
I n January 2011 I travelled to Bangalore to meet Rahul Dravid and interview him for the book I was
then writing. I intended to write on the changing face of modern cricket, on its response to the introduction of the franchise into a nation-based game, on the challenges Test cricket faced, and on the effects of media and technology on the game. When I thought of which Indian cricketers I would most like to talk to, Dravid’s name suggested itself as an o bvious choice. Shortly after I received word that I should go ahead and contact Rahul, I called and spoke briefly with him on the phone. He was unfailingly courteous and helpful, providing detailed directions to his house, even solicitously inquiring whether I knew my way about Bangalore (I didn’t, but assured him that I would be just fine). I arrived at his house on time, was shown in, and soon our conversation started. Dravid was dressed casually and conducted himself with a polite, relaxed informality that put me instantly at ease, and prompted me to ask all the questions I wanted to. Mrs Dravid joined us for a few minutes, brought us tea, asked me a few questions abo ut my backgr ound, and then left to take care of their boys. As I talked to Dravid, a slight sense of unreality pervaded the proceedings. This man simply did not have the airs of a sporting superstar, someone who was rich and famous and hobnobbed with other cricketing superstars (though he did sometimes casually refer to them by first name). I could have been talking to someone who was a keen fan of cricket rather than a Test great and a former India captain. At times I had to keep reminding myself that this was Rahul Dravid. Of course, the quality, sharpness, and sometimes bluntness of his observations on cricket, the level of cricketing knowledge on display, and the insights that only someone on the inside of the game could have, reminded me that I was talking to a person located at a very particular focal point of international cricket. And then, it happened. The money moment, so to speak. As we talked about the transition from first-class cricket to Test cricket, from Test cricket to oneday games and T20, Dravid said, “My attitude towards batting was simple: the bowler had to earn my wicket. I told myself that I had to bat at least 30 overs in a Test. If I didn’t do that, I had failed. I would do it one way or the other.” As he said this, suddenly his expression changed. The smiling, casual, relaxed demeanour that he had assumed till that point in the conversation was gone. His face hardened, the lines on his visage tautened. I stared at him, a lump now pr esent in my throat, as I felt a slight chill r un up my spine. At that moment I realised I was in the presence of 10,000 Test runs, of umpteen thousands of deliveries faced, resisted and scored off. I was in the presence of a man who had squared up to, among others, Ambrose, Bishop, McGrath, Walsh, Akram, Steyn, Donald, Waqar – bowlers who, quite frankly, would induce in me trouser-soiling, spit-drying fear. At that moment the friendly mask slipped, just for a second, and I saw the steel and the grit that had made so many of India’s greatest Test wins possible.
And then we were back to being chatty about modern cricket, the big paychecks in the IPL, and the new aspirations of young Indian cricketers. Our conversation lasted some four hours. At the end of it Dravid drove me to the entrance of the residential estate where his house was located, so that I could hail a cab. He wished me luck with my writing and was then gone. While I remain grateful that he took the time to speak so frankly and voluminously to an utter stranger, I remain even more appreciative that he let me see, just for a brief moment, right into the heart of a true champion. It is the closest I have ever come to knowing what goes into the making of a gr eat cricketer. Samir Chopra lives in Brooklyn and teaches Philosophy at the City University of New York. He writes the blog The Pitch (on ESPNcricinfo), where this piece was first published on March 9, 2012, and runs a couple of others – Eye on Cricket and samirchopra.com
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Start as you mean to go on FAZAL KHALEEL
I first met Rahul at St Anthony’s Boys Primary School in Bangalore but only got to know him better
when we moved to St Joseph’s High School in class fo ur.
Even at that age he was serious – a little different from the others. I see the same qualities in his older son, Samit, who has the same ability to switch on and off easily. These qualities helped Rahul through his cricketing life, to get out of difficult situations and to handle easy ones well. He paid attention to detail, especially the basics. If his form was not good he would go back to shadow-practice – to the hanging ball. When correcting our mistakes, our coach, Keki Tarapore, would tell us that if the bat did not co me down straight, the ball would travel at an angle. Rahul never for got the instruction. Interestingly, he never made any changes to his basic cricket or in his approach to the game. Right from his school cricket days, he has played the same way. Playing in the V came naturally to him and he never altered it. As a roo m-mate, Rahul was difficult as well as easy to share with. He wanted a zen-like atmospher e in the roo m – ever ything peaceful and calm. He was quiet and meditative, would not watch TV much; he read books instead. He didn’t seem to realise that the rest of us were normal human beings who wanted to make noise. He had his set routines and rituals, even in those days. He would do breathing exercises and clean his nostrils using the ancient practice of Jalneti. It was very boring, but in hindsight I wish I had done the same. Perhaps then I might have graduated to a higher level of cricket too. Rahul set the bar high for himself. Sunil Gavaskar and Gundappa Viswanath were his heroes, and while he may not admit it, he tried to model his game on Gavaskar’s. I remember during a physics lesson in class six or seven, while the teacher was explaining how specific gravity is equal to relative density, Rahul quipped: “SG = RD. Sunil Gavaskar = Rahul Dravid.” In 1987, we were in Nagpur for an age-group inter-zone tournament. A few of us were standing by a juice stall in the hostel’s atrium when a curly-haired short guy walked up and asked for Mujib-urRehman, a Tamil Nadu batsman. We told him Rehman was over-age and was not part of the squad. When he left, Rahul said: “This guy is a go od player. He is going to play for India.” I laughed, but the next day that kid got a big hundred for West Zone. It was Sachin Tendulkar; inside two years he had made his debut for India. Rahul knew very early in life what he wanted. And that came from his upbringing. His parents equipped him with solid middle-class values that helped him move seamlessly from one level to the other. His ability to look at the big picture at a young age was amazing. When we were concentrating on getting into Under-19 sides, he was already thinking of excelling in the Ranji Trophy – a leap I could not even comprehend at that age. After he made his Ranji debut he told me it was just the beginning
and that he now wanted to play for India. After he returned from his debut Test series in England, he said he wanted to be remembered as one of the greatest to have played for India, not some also-ran. As the years went by, his determination to excel only grew, which meant he was often harsh on himself. In the 1996-97 season he was playing in the Ranji Trophy for Karnataka after being dropped from the India squad for the ODI series against Sri Lanka, supposedly because of his defensive style of batting. We were playing at the RSI grounds in central Bangalore, where our dressing room was a makeshift tent. During lunch one day, a spectator walked up and started to criticise Rahul’s batting and slow scoring. The man kept going at him but Rahul sat there quietly with his pads on. After a while I half stood up to give the man a piece o f my mind, but Rahul pulled me back down. Once he left, Rahul said the man had made a couple of good points, and that it was good to take in constructive criticism. The more successful Rahul became, the more humble he got. But while he was patient, he’d speak his mind if he wasn’t happy with your work. In 1998, Karnataka travelled to play Hyderabad in the Ranji semi-final in Secunderabad. We were desperate to do well that season and the pressure was on. Half an hour before the end of the second day’s play I was batting with Rahul. He warned me not to get distracted while Hyderabad’s veteran spinners, Venkatapathy Raju and Kanwaljit Singh, were bowling together, and said to play out the day. Coming from a man who can play out days for a run, it was hardly surprising. Unfortunately I got an inside edge o nto my pads and was caught at silly point. Later Rahul gave me some stick for the dismissal, which I did not like at the time. I told my roommate, J Arun Kumar, that till we won the match I wouldn’t talk to Rahul. The match went down to the wire and I scored a crucial 51 in our successful chase. Then we patched up and had a good laugh. In a way, Rahul letting me have it spurred me to do better. He always inspired youngsters with his leadership qualities and his performances. He is the perfect example of “practise what you preach”. He would never ask you to do anything he would not do himself. The seriousness with which he played affected the various dressing rooms he was in – India, Karnataka, and even the corporate club, India Cements, that he played for in the Chennai leagues. People always had immense respect for him, and it was difficult at times for me to decide who was better: Rahul Dravid the human being o r Rahul Dravid the cricketer. , a former Karnataka first-class cricketer who played age-group cricket and Ranji Trophy with Rahul Dravid, Fazal Khaleel spoke to ESPNcricinfo assistant editor Nagraj Gollapudi
Grassy wicket? No problem. Baby Rahu l with his parents
An early start: Dravid wields a bat n early as big as himself
In his India Under-19 days
The elaborate forward defence, bat safely behind pad, on sho w in a Ranji Trophy match aga inst Tamil Nadu in 19 91
The Bangalore boys: Dravid, Venkatesh Prasad, Javagal Srinath and Anil Kumble, flanked by offspinner Rangarao Ananth on the left and former England batsman Colin Cowdrey on the right, at the Karnataka State Cricket Association
Class of 199 6: Dravid a nnounced h is arrival in Test cricket with 95 a t Lord’s
Batting during his first-innings 190 in Hamilton in 1999. He made a hundred in the second innings as well.
Dropped for his slow scoring before the 1999 World Cup, he b egan the tourn ament with a 1 29-ball 145 in Taunton, and finished it as the highest run-getter
In Kent colours, 200 0: Dravid sa id his six-month stint with the county helped him better understand his game an d himself
The duet: some of Dravid’s finest efforts came with VVS Laxman at the other en d – most famously his 180 in Kolkata in 200 1
In 2002 he ma stered the swing and seam of Headingley, making a teeth-gritted 1 48 to set th e platform for India’s first Test win in England in 16 years
Solo again: in Adelaide in 2003, his 233 and 72 not out gave India their first Test win in Australia since 1981
Dravid carried on in the 2003 World Cup where he h ad left off in 1 999, scoring 318 runs. He also kept wicket, effecting 16 dismissals
Colour-coordinated with wife Vijeeta on holiday in Santorini, Greece, 2004
With sons Samit (above) and Anvay
His highest score, the 270 in Rawalpindi in 20 04, was his fourth double-hun dred in 2 0 months. India won the Test by an innings, a nd the series 2-1
Dravid won the first ICC awards for Player of the Year and Test Player of the Year, in S eptember 20 04, for over 2000 runs across both formats
Physio’s delight: Dravid ra rely flunked the dreaded skin-fold s test, a nd remained in peak fitness till the end of his career
Kingston, 2006 was another classic of standalone defiance. Dravid’s 81 and 68 won India their first se ries in the West Ind ies in 35 years
One of the toughest days of his captaincy came when India left the 2007 World Cup in the first round after defeats to Bangladesh and Sri Lanka
The fab four: Dravid, Sourav Ganguly, VVS Laxman and Sachin Tendulkar, on the 2007 tour of England
His captaincy career en ded on a high, with a win in the Pataudi Troph y – India’s first series victory in England since 1986
On his third trip to Australia, in 20 07-08, Dravid broke out of a run of poor form to score a crucial 93 in Ind ia’s famous win in Perth
In 20 08, he became the sixth batsma n to have scored 10, 000 Test runs. Sunil Gavaskar and Sachin Tendulkar are the on ly other Indians to have gone p ast the milestone
Long one of India’s best specialist slip ca tchers, in December 201 0, Dravid broke the world record, taking his 200th catch in Tests
If it’s Jun e, it must be Jamaica: another win in Kingston for India, thanks largely to Dravid’s seco nd-innings 112
Fifteen yea rs after his d ebut at Lord’s, Dravid returned to Englan d for one of his finest series, with three Test hundreds and an average of 76
Old-school Test batsman or not, Dravid d idn’t fare too ba dly in the IPL. In 2012 he captained Rajasthan Royals in the tournament.
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My husband the perfectionist VIJEETA DRAVID
I ’ve been married to Rahul for almost nine years now and we have always been very private people.
This is not meant to be a song of praise for him on his retirement; I’m writing this to provide an insight into the role cricket has played in his life, and to take that in for myself at the end of his 16year international career. How the game has made him who he is and how he has been able to get the most out of his time in international cricket.
The last 12 months of his career were ver y special for us for mor e than the runs or centuries Rahul scored. After the 2010-11 tour of South Africa, our older son, Samit, suddenly developed a huge interest in cricket. With him watching his father score his centuries in England in 2011, it was as if in the last year of his career Rahul had found his best audience. I was with the boys at Old Trafford when Rahul played his first (and last) T20 international, and we also travelled to every match of the one-day series. During the ODI series, we went into the Lord’s dressing room and showed Samit and Anvay their baba’s name on the Lord’s honours board. It was a huge thrill for both boys to see Rahul play live in front of so many people, to see him at the “work” that kept him away from them for months. Rahul and I will always treasure that memory. Our families had been friends for years. I have two older brothers, which meant I did follow cricket – but only one-day cricket, I must confess. I didn’t have a clue about Test cricket and was too caught up in my post-graduate studies in medicine to find out. What I did know was that Rahul had been picked to play for India, and later that he was doing well. A couple of times during Tests in Nagpur, Rahul dropped in at our house for dinner: very normal evenings; people were not invited in to show him off to. What I noticed then was how curious he was about other people and their lives. Very little of the conversation was about him. We would talk more about my internship in surgery and my work as a rural medical officer than about his cricket. At the time I appreciated it, but I didn’t quite realise what an unusual quality that really is. Now that I have witnessed the crazy world of Indian cricket, I think he must have enjoyed those dinners. Just a normal evening in a normal house, without fuss, where he was treated like a normal person, which he has always been. After we got married, I stepped into a completely alien environment. All he had said to me was that once we were married, we would travel a lot, I would meet a lot of different people and I would learn along the way. As part of my post-graduate training I had spent a year in a Maharashtra village as a medical officer, working with basic facilities, helping women deliver babies, doing surgeries and post-mortems. I was very involved with my work, had seen a lot of life by then; my post-graduation studies had made me a little more mature than I would have been if I had got mar ried at 21. In cricket, I found people talking about difficulties and pressures, how to handle being dropped and so on. I didn’t get it at all. To me the real anxieties of life were under the knife, the real pressures were in hospital wards.
Very early in our marriage, I remember Rahul saying to me that he was hoping to play for the next three or four years and that he would need me to be with him to support him in that time. When he retired in March 2012, I thought: not bad, we’ve done better than the three or four years he thought about in 2003. We have shared a very good half of his cricket career together, and knowing how much he loves the game, that has mattered to me. It was six months before I travelled with him for the first time, when the Indian team toured Australia in 2003. It had been six months without international cricket – we had spent three months in Scotland, and only when we came back to India did I hear peo ple talk about Australia. I had no clue as to how he had fared in 1999, why the tour was so important to everyone. Rahul never spoke about it himself either. It was as if he was conscious that while his career was the only thing that was talked about, his wife was an individual herself and her wor ld was as impor tant as his was. I watched his Adelaide innings back home on television with his parents, everyone getting up at five in the morning. I didn’t realise the magnitude of that innings in cr icketing terms. We saw him go from 199 overnight on the third day to 200 very early on a Monday morning. When I went in to work that day, to St John’s Medical College, I was told there were so me r epor ters who had co me to talk to me. I didn’t speak to them, of course, but I could tell people were happy. I fully understoo d the significance of Rahul’s double-century and that victory much, much later. When I went to Melbourne and Sydney, I was happy that I was back with him and he was doing well. I was still trying to get to know him, know his game. It was only then that I began to notice how he would prepare: his routines, his obsession with shadow practice at all hours of the day, which I first found very weird. (At one point I thought he was sleepwalking.) I’ve learnt what I have about Test cricket by talking to him, and a few o f his close friends, who have helped me understand the tempo of Test cricket, bowling changes, field placements and the importance of sessions – all the things that can make Test cricket an adventure. As I began to understand the game, I got hooked on to it, so much so that when there was a match I wanted to follow but there was no live TV, I followed the game on the internet and enjoyed the text commentary as much as I did the immediacy of being able to follow scores. These days, of course, I have my own theories about cr icket, which he has to listen to. Early in our marriage I saw that there was nothing about his cricket that was casual, unconscious or accidental. Before he went on tour, I would pack all his o ther bags, but his cricket kit was sacred. Only Rahul handled it. I did not even touch it. I packed his things knowing full well that if I packed two sets of informal clothes, he would wear them in turn all through a tour for weeks if he had to and not think about it. He has used one type of moisturising cream for his dry skin for 20 years. He is not enamoured of gadgets and barely registers brands, of watches, cologne or cars. If the weight of his bat is off by a g ram, though, Rahul will notice it in an instant and get the problem fixed. Everyone around him knew that cricket was and had to be his utmost prior ity. On match days Rahul wanted his space and his silence. He didn’t like being rushed, not for the bus, not to the crease. All he said he needed was ten minutes to himself, to get what I thought of as his “internal milieu” settled, befor e he could g et into a match day. When we began to travel with the kids – and he loved having the boys around during a series, even when they were babies – we made sure we got two rooms, next to each other. The day before every match, the boys were told that their father had to be left alone for a while, and he was. He would go into his room to meditate or maybe to do a few visualisation exercises. On the morning of the game,
he would get up and do another session of meditation before leaving for the ground. I have tried meditation myself and I know that the zone Rahul is able to get into as quickly as he does takes a lot of years of training to reach. It is all part of the complete equilibrium he tries to achieve before getting into a ser ies. Like all players, Rahul too has his superstitions; sometimes they work, sometimes they don’t. He doesn’t try a new bat out in a series, and he puts his right thigh guard on first. On the 2011 tour to England, he made sure he sat in the same space in the Lord’s dressing room that Tillakaratne Dilshan had occupied when he scored 193 earlier in the season. In that game, Rahul got his first Test hundred at Lor d’s. Despite all this preparation and attention to detail, once the game is on, he has this fantastic ability to switch off from it. At the end of the day’s play, he may be thinking about it, his batting may bother him, he will be itching to go back and try again, but at that point he can compar tmentalise his life very well. He won’t order room service or brood indoors. He would rather go out, find something to do: go to a movie or watch musicals – which he loves. He will walk out to the sea to wind down or go to bookstores. Rahul has been able to deal with all that goes on in cricket because of two reasons – he can put things in perspective and he can switch focus from one world to another when he needs to. Whatever happened in his cricket, at home he was always husband, father, family man. Never Mr Gloomy. He never came home saying, “Oh, I’ve had a bad day.” Unless asked, he wouldn’t speak about his “wor k”. Other than dro pped catches. When he was going through a very tough time, around the 2010-11 season, the one thing that bothered him was that he didn’t want to be playing if he wasn’t contributing and if he was taking a youngster’s place. He did think about retirement then. He had more than 10,000 Test runs, and he had always said that he would go if he was not contributing. “Because this is what I have stood for,” he said. To play well in tough conditions, play well abroad, to contribute to victories. We did have discussions about whether he should g o at that time, and a lot of my answer s would be about my gut. I always told him, “I don’t know about averages.” I just said to him that he was the one who knew everything about his game. In January 2011, after South Africa, on instinct I said to him, “Hang on, give it another series and then see if you are taking anyone’s place.” Rahul has always had a very good understanding of what was important about his being in cricket and what was not. It can only come from a real deep love for the game. When I began to understand the politics that exist in the game, he only said one thing: this game has g iven me so much in life that I will never be bitter. There is so much to be thankful for, and regardless of everything, that will never go away. Only once, I remember, he returned from a Test and said, “Shucks, I shouldn’t have done something… I got a bit angry today. I lost my temper in the dressing room.” He wouldn’t say more. Many months later Veeru (Sehwag) told me that Rahul had actually thrown a chair that day. “I’d never seen him like that and he threw a chair not because we’d lost but because of how we’d lost.” He has always been even-tempered, on good days and bad. He never grumbles, and it is very, very difficult to understand what he is feeling, because he can internalise everything. He often said that to succeed in international cricket for such a long time, “I have only thought about me and my cricket… but I’m lear ning to be unselfish.” That said, he found a way to wor k his training around the family. He often fit in his five hours of training and nets when none of us were at home. If Samit needs help with
his homework, Rahul will be there to help. Of course we argue, like all couples do. We did as young parents, over who changed the nappies or why he didn’t get angry about this or that. Cricketers have to be diplomatic when talking to the media during series, but I remember telling him during the course of a phone conversation once, “Hello, I’m your wife. Don’t speak as if this is a press conference.” In turn, he gets irritated with me when I am being what he calls a little “wife-ish” and asking him why he did what he did and why he didn’t tick somebody off or say no to something. If given a choice, he would never celebrate any of his on-field achievements at home, because, he said, his enjoyment came when he was on the field, batting or competing. What he wanted after that was to find out when he was going to bat again. I was the one who insisted that we rejoice when good things happened. Not by throwing a lavish party or anything showy, but just by bringing home some ice-cream. I often tell Rahul he is a very good husband but would have been a very boring boyfriend! He has always had a wide view of the world and the ability to see the larger picture and take things beyond the trivial and the individual. After he received the Padma Shri in Delhi for 2004, along with Sourav, the next day he looked at the papers and said that to see just their photos on the front pages was unfortunate. Rahul was saying this at home, not to impress people as to how modest he was. He doesn’t like the word “hero” being used carelessly, because to him real heroes are soldiers, scientists, doctors. In all these years he has let me be me. He didn’t care about the correct “cricket wife” image. He wasn’t fussed about anything – whether I worked when I wanted to, what I said to anyone. I’ve read a lot of stuff about how cricketers get “disturbed” when their wives are on tour. Rahul was fine when I travelled, both in the Pakistani winter, when Samit was three months old, and two months later in the West Indies. It meant that once we lived out of a hotel room for 69 days at a stretch; not easy with a baby. Rahul enjoyed being a father and was also very, very patient. (Though he also knew that a dad who has fielded for 90 overs in the Caribbean heat is not going to be asked to change nappies!) We had our challenges as travelling parents. Samit once bur ned his hand in the West Indies when Rahul was on the field. At the end of it all, though, it was wonderful to enter the dressing room to celebrate India’s first series win there after 35 years. He insisted that all the wives and family on tour were invited into the dressing room and included in the celebrations – most satisfying for all of us who were travelling with the team. It was repeated in England the year after. Next only to my father, I think of Rahul as the most non-materialistic person I have ever come across. Gadgets, gizmos, brands, are completely lost on him. I remember entering the room for the inaugural ICC awards event, when he looked at a car on display, the one that was to be given to the Player of the Year, and said, “Will be nice to get it.” I knew he wasn’t thinking about the car. The other nominees included big names like Brian Lara, Ricky Ponting, Matthew Hayden and Muttiah Muralitharan. The ceremony was very long, we had to go through many courses of our sit-down English dinner. When he was awarded the Player of the Year, he gave me a little hug before going on stage, and to me that said it all. It meant a lot to him. Retirement will mean a big shift in Rahul’s life, of not having training or team-mates around him or the chance to compete again. The family, though, is delighted to have him back. This article was first published on ESPNcricinfo on March 12, 2012
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‘When you’ve played at the top, it’s hard to settle for second-best’ INTERVIEW BY SHARDA UGRA
March 2012
How does a player pick the right time to retire? How did you? What’s the difference between a slump and a sign that yo ur time is up? What separates doubt from foresight? It’s actually very hard to tell if there is such a thing as a right time. All your career, you’re taught to never never give up. You’re fighting, you keep improving, you always think you can sort out problems. I never thought about going out on a high or going out on a slump. A lot of people told me: “You will just know, Rahul, when the time is right.” Obviously there are other things that come into consideration: where you are in your life, where the team is at that point of time, what the future challenges are, how you fit into that. There are the immediate challenges of tours like Australia and England, which you think are toug h, and you want to try to go there and make a differ ence. In the end it just comes down to knowing and being comfortable with it. And I just think I was most comfortable doing it at this stage. If things had not gone well in England, maybe I would have been comfor table doing it then. Obviously after England I felt I was in good for m and that I needed to go to Australia, and I felt that it was going to be a toug h tour and that it wouldn’t be r ight to walk away after doing well in England… it may sound silly, but just wanting to finish on a high – that hadn’t occurred to me, in the sense that I wanted to go when I was comfortable. There was a period in 2008, the end of 2008, when I was really struggling and not getting runs, and there was a lot of talk of me being dropped. If I had been dropped at that stage, I would’ve still continued to play fir st-class cricket. Not with the intention of trying to make a comeback – I know that if I had got dropped at 36 or 37, the likelihood of me making a comeback would have been very slim. I wouldn’t have played for wanting to make a comeback, but because I still wanted to just play the game. It was a game I loved and I still enjoyed playing it. I probably would have continued playing Ranji Trophy at that stage. And how long that would have lasted, who knows.
But to end a career with t he IPL? In some ways it’s like a weaning-off period. Playing cricket has been such a big part of my life, so to ust walk away might have been hard. Some of the senior guys who’ve retired and played the IPL say the IPL’s a good way, in some ways, to slowly wean your self off the drug that is cricket. What do you assess when making a decision to retire? It’s a combination of things. The important thing to remember is how much you are contributing. That’s a major factor. As you g et older these things do come in, and that’s why I said that England fo r me… it was important for me to keep contributing. After retiring, did you think: what if this is a mistake? I think the best question someone asked me about this retirement thing came from Eric Simons. I called him up and said, “Eric, I’m retiring.” And Eric said, “When you made that decision, Rahul, did you feel relief or did you feel disappointment?” And I had never thought about it that way. It was a feeling of relief and I did feel it. I’ve not regretted it. I’ve lived this life for 20 years. I haven’t regretted it and I hope I won’t regret it. I don’t know, I
might miss it. We miss a lot of things. We miss co llege, everyone wants to go back to Uni and live that life again, but you know that’s not possible. Hopefully you move on. You will know that there are other things to do and other challenges.
What about international cricket won’t you miss, apart from the travel and being away from family? In a cricket career your life is in so me ways controlled for you. You have no co ntro l over schedules, you have no control about where you want to play, you don’t have control over that as a cricketer. I think while I’ll miss the routine and knowing what to strive for, I think I’ll enjoy the flexibility of being able to make some choices about things I want to do. I’ll enjoy the luxury of now having that choice. What is it about life after cricket t hat you think a player fears the most ? Each one has his own fears, when it’s something you’ve done all your life. And when it’s the only thing that you’ve known, it’s almost like starting out fresh again. It’s almost like going back to college, like going back to what you felt like when making a decision about whether you want to do commerce or engineering. The only problem is, you are doing it at 40 rather than at 17 or 18, and with skills you’ve worked on for 20 years at the exclusion of other skills. You have to start all over again. That, I think, in a lot of ways can be daunting to people, and it’s not easy, especially, if I may say so, because you are used to competing and playing at an extremely high level. You pride yourself on a cer tain level of competence and a certain level of ability. Very rarely people can, I think, step out of something they’ve done for 23 years and attain the same standards in whatever they do. When you are used to playing at that top level, it’s hard to accept that sometimes you have to settle for being second-best. I guess that’s the way it’s going to be. You can’t expect a guy at 40-41 to become “world class” at something else.
What do ret ired players tell you about coping? I have spoken to people who have retired, and especially coaches. Whether it’s been conversations with Kapil Dev or through the years with John [Wright], Greg [Chappell], Gary [Kirsten], and even Duncan [Fletcher] now. All of them have gone through that, and they say it takes a bit of time to get used to. You get used to it and then there are new things to challenge you and you must move on. Each one is different, I guess. Before you actually retired, was there a time in your career that you were so fed up that you actually wanted to throw it all away? Obviously the period just after the World Cup when we lost, in 2007, was difficult. It was the first phase in my career, other than the first couple of years when I was establishing myself, that I got dropped from the one-day side. Other than that I had a pretty smooth run for a long time. That was tough in terms of some of my performances, that whole period, 2007-08, getting knocked out of the World Cup and not performing so well after I gave up the captaincy, for a while. I think that was a really hard period, when I questioned myself a lot and wondered whether it had all just disappeared and gone away. I thought I’d really had a good run and I could have walked away in 2008 and felt pretty comfortable with what I had done and achieved, and I wouldn’t have regretted it at all. Because I’ve always tried to do my best – you’ve always got to try to be the best you can be and hope that the results fall your way. If it hadn’t worked out, it hadn’t worked out. But I was lucky to get a chance to play a couple of years o f cricket.
How much was working on your fitness a part of pushing yourself through the last four or five years from then on? I spent two-three years working with Paul Chapman, who was the strength and conditioning coach at the NCA, and with the NCA’s physios and trainers, on raising the bar of my fitness. I was lucky that we had all those people here. I saw in those physios and trainers, and in Paul, a resource – really good professional people who could help me. And I sort of decided to utilise that completely. I did make a conscio us effort to try and raise the bar o f my fitness, because if I wanted to keep playing at this age, I didn’t want any of the younger guys or people in the field to feel that I wasn’t fit enough to be there. Sometimes performances you can or can’t control, but fitness, I think, to a large extent you can control. I’m not saying you can control everything in fitness – there are a lot of guys who have injuries, who, whatever they do and whatever they try, sadly they can’t do much about it. But in most things, fitness and diet and stuff like that, you have r esponsibility over it. Sometimes you practise and work hard and still things don’t pan out. But fitness is a lot simpler. I said, “Look, I’ll make an effort to be as fit as I’ve been.” While I did try, it was hard to say I’ve been at my fittest. In some areas I was fitter than I was at 24-25 and in some areas I was not. But I’d like to believe that till I finished my career, I set a pretty high standard of fitness for myself, and that I didn’t let anybody down in terms of the effor t I put in, in terms of my physical fitness.
Did it have a direct impact on your game in the last few years? It’s hard to co-relate the two. You do perform better when you’re fit, you do feel better about yourself, but it’s hard to say. Even when I was doing badly in 2007-08, I was pretty fit. Was I really fitter in England last year than I was in 2007 when I was doing badly? Really, no. Probably I was fitter back then when I was in England, so no. Sometimes fitness is a good thing to have but you have to recognise that fitness takes you only so far, and skills are the most important thing. Fitness just helps you execute those cricketing skills for longer and more consistently, maybe. If someone thinks, “I’ll spend the off season working on my fitness and I’ll come back a better cricketer,” I don’t think that’s enough. You need to spend a lot of time working on your skills and honing your skills.
When cricketers go into their late 30s do they sense what the outside world observes as a fading of their skills? Slowing down of reflexes, eyesight etc? I didn’t sense it like that personally, but maybe we are trained not to sense it, who knows? Maybe sometimes these things are better judged from outside. As a player you will never admit to weakness, to a slowing down of skills. You’re trained not to admit these things. You have bad patches when you are 24-25, and it’s only when you have bad patches after 35-36 that people say your skills are down, the eyesight is gone. Maybe it has nothing to do with age and you’re just going through bad form and you happen to be 35. After 35, I felt as fit in terms of physical fitness – if yo u judge fitness in terms of sprinting a distance, running a distance, whatever yo-yo tests we have and weights you lift – as I was when I was playing my best cricket, at 28-29. I was probably doing mor e in terms of some things now than I was when I was young. How do you judge eyesight? If you go to a doctor and ask him, he will say you’ve still got 20-20 vision. Maybe [time] just wears you down – the travelling, the pressur e, the dealing with expectations, those things slowly start chipping away, chipping away. It’s hard to put a date to it and say, “Now it’s started decreasing and now it has decreased.” The best explanation I’ve heard for this is that mentally sometimes you are fresher when you are
younger. You’ve not been worn down so much. So your response to defeat, failure, success, pressure is better. As you get older, the freshness gets lost, the sense of excitement. Like what you experience the first time you walk into Lord’s. After you’ve been there three or four times, maybe that sense of wonder goes. That’s the best explanation for why after a period of dealing with some of the same things they become more difficult, rather than a fading of skill.
Australia must have been the tour from hell? You went there with the best intentions, the best preparation, and it all went badly. What went wrong? I think Australia was disappointing. In England I felt we had quite a few injuries and I just felt we weren’t as well prepared as we were in Australia. Australia, I thought we went there with the best of intentions, the guys cared. They played better, they pitched the ball up, we had some opportunities in the first Test we didn’t grab. We had them at some 210 fo r 6 and then they go t 320 and we were about 220 for 2, and Sachin got out that evening and I got out next morning. Having said that, you have got to give them credit. They bowled well, pitched the ball up, they swung the ball. From a personal point of view? All the bowleds? It was disappointing. You set high standards for yourself. I felt that getting out is getting out and obviously constantly getting out… So it really doesn’t matt er whether you were out caught, lbw, stumped, bowled, whatever? I don’t like getting out, period. How it happens is almost irr elevant. But yeah, obviously it happened a few times more than I would have liked, no doubt about it. The beauty of it is that now I don’t have to worr y about it. But those are challenges yo u face all your life. I think that is what differ entiates people who play for long periods of time from others, because they keep getting asked questions. Top bowlers and top bowling attacks keep asking you different questions. For some it is getting o ut in a particular way, for some it is the ability to play spin, for some to play pace. For some it is a different bowler, a unique angle, on a different wicket. These questions keep getting asked and you have to constantly keep coming up with answers. Most of the guys that I know who have played over a period of time have constantly been able to find answers to the questions that keep getting asked. You become a problemsolver, a solution-finder. I’d like to believe that if I had continued, I would hopefully have worked on this area [getting bowled] and g ot better at it.
Given that you are seen as a classical, almost old-fashioned, Test player, and you know your history, is there an era in the game you would have liked to have played in? When I think about the fact that I had helmets, I think I’m happy to have played in this era. Playing some of those West Indian quicks and some of those guys without a helmet must have been a frightening proposition. You were a No. 3 in the mould largely of an opening batsman. So do you think that coming into a line-up full of stroke-makers actually worked for your game, as much as you lent solidity to it? Imagine being the No. 3 after an opening co mbination of Boycott and Tavaré. I think we all complemented each other. The fact that we did quite well in the last decade, home and away, with our ups and downs, was because of a batting line-up that complemented each other. There were stroke-makers, there were guys who played spin in a particular way, guys who were more solid… throw in a left-hander in the middle. We complemented each other quite well, we fed off each other. I think we played a r ole, in each helping the other one do as well as they have done. Veeru [Sehwag] and Gautam Gambhir have come in and done quite well and played a role too. I
think I had a role, and I helped some of the guys play better. The ability to wear out some of the bowlers did help our stroke-makers. The fact that some of them played more strokes allowed me to sometimes play in a way that I could play or felt most comfortable playing. Over the course of time we also found our niche, our own places. We all played for such a long time together that we worked out what was comfortable for us, and it seemed to gel well and it worked for the team as well.
You have the world record for the most century partnerships. When you look back, do batting partners have what they say doubles players do in tennis – a chemistry that builds? Or is it just familiarity? It partly builds with familiarity. Once you’ve been around each other a long time and played together a long time, it does help – it’s a comfort factor. You have some memories to go back to constantly. It does help when you have a guy at the other end who knows your game well and sometimes can just point out a few things, or knows exactly when you’re getting casual or you’re not concentrating. For me it’s worked well with all the guys I’ve played with. Over the course of time it has built. I’ve had a go od r ecor d with Veeru, Sachin, Laxman, because we’ve played tog ether a long time. In a partnership, you don’t change your game. The conversations are different. Each one has his own unique conversations with you and you have your conversation with them. With Veeru, as you would expect, it’s probably a casual co nversation – he br ings that side out of you.
What do you t alk about? Technique? I know people go after Veeru’s technique a lot, but to be a positive player you have to have a very solid technique. Technique is not only about being able to defend balls. If you are able to play positively, it means you are getting yourself in the right position at the right time and doing it quicker and better than someone else. That in itself is a technique, and it’s just that there’s an attacking technique and a defensive technique. I think both are important. Some guys are better at their defensive technique and some guys have a better attacking technique. Both of them ar e techniques. So with Veeru, it’s a lot more casual and relaxed. If you asked him, he would say, “I’m actually quite serious with Rahul”, but his level of seriousness… Veeru is always asking you to play shots. With Sachin – we don’t talk a lot, but I think we know, we respect and know each other enough to go and tell the other that maybe you are relaxing, you need to tighten up a bit. There’s quite a lot of information that is exchanged. With Laxman – we’ve played a lot together in junior cricket, so again we have a few key things we say to each other, and we keep encouraging each other. We don’t talk too much about technique, we ust encourage each other a lot. With Ganguly it’s, “Don’t just hog the strike when the spinner is bowling, and get me on the strike as well, buddy.”
One of the things you’ve said about batting is that it is a meditative experience. When you come in at 3 for 1, India is fighting to save a game, how is that possible? You can’t think about these things when you are batting and the bowler is running in at you. That is, I guess, the meditative aspect of it. It sor t of focuses you o n one thing, and that’s meditation, I guess: the ability to focus on a particular thing by removing everything else – the score, the situation. You can’t be thinking about all these things, so you try to get that one particular focus, which, I guess, is the cricket ball. If you have to be a successful batsman you have to be able to focus on the ball. You can’t be thinking about a hundred things, yo u can’t.
But you did take to meditat ion itself as a to ol for preparation? I took to it quite young. I was just drawn to it. I did it a couple of times at 18-19, some basic form of meditation. I think I got better with age. It started off with trying to do some relaxation, to just calm myself down in some ways. And I’ve experimented with a few things, not out-of-body experiences or anything, but I just found that it was a gr eat way to r elax and switch off. I was a bit of an anxious teenager. I would worry a lot and was quite a shy young kid in some ways. Though I always believed I had the ability to look at the positive side of a lot of things. Even in the most difficult situations, it was very seldom that I would get down on myself and keep moping. I would always look ahead. I think I was more anxious about the future rather than worrying about the past. I would get more anxious about what might happen – what’s next, how will I cope with it? So I think things like meditation and just being calm and relaxed definitely did help me come thro ugh that, especially when I was a yo ungster.
What kind of ro utines did you have when you prepared for games? Were they different for Tests and ODIs? They were just a few basic things, it wasn’t too much. You had to be flexible. You couldn’t say this was the only thing that I did and I didn’t do anything else. One of the things was that I didn’t like to get rushed on the morning of a game. So I got up a lot earlier, took my time doing things, just eased into things. But again, you had to be flexible about practices. Sometimes you got good facilities, sometimes you didn’t. I just wanted to feel comfortable. When I went into a Test match, I wanted to feel ready, like I’d practised hard enough, I’d hit enough balls, physically I’d do ne what I needed to do. Mentally again, I’d done the prepar ation, and I felt in a good, calm space where I was eager to perform without being too anxious. Or being too stressed or tense about what might happen. To be fair, I never always reached it. It’s very difficult to do always. The constant process is to always try to sor t of reach that. Because once you’ve experienced it, and seen that, you want that to be the template. But as long as you are trying to achieve that or striving to achieve that, then you get there or thereabouts at most times. Which is all I tried to do. I tried to give myself the best chance. It is not that every time I cracked it I’d be in the same perfect state of mind, of course not. But I’d like to believe I got most things done, in terms of my preparation leading into a game. If you got enough sleep, you were more relaxed in the morning leading into the game. I did visualisation sometimes, on and off and when I felt like it, not all the time. Even with the meditation stuff, as I became better at it, I didn’t need to do it every time.
What is the bigg est challenge of being a No. 3 in international cricket these days? Do you believe a decade of batsmanship is now going to be followed by the age o f the bowlers? I felt that, even in 2000 there were good attacks. You look at any attack that had McGrath, Lee, Gillespie – that was a good attack. I don’t know if the challenges for the No. 3 have been any different. You have to sometimes go in when the ball is new, so lots of times you’re playing the new ball really, which is part of the challenge. It’s also a position where sometimes the openers might have a good partnership, so you’ve been waiting a while. It’s almost a state of readiness you have to be in because you might have to go in in the first over or you might not go in for a long time. That might be true for a No. 3 but the Nos. 4, 5, 6 have a little more breathing space. They can wait a little for the first wicket to fall before they know that they might need to go in early. If an opening partnership develops, a No. 4 can afford to
relax and settle down and switch off a little bit because he knows that even if a wicket falls, the No. 3 will go in and I can have a little time to switch on and get ready. In that sense, the No. 3 doesn’t have that. But I don’t think that has been different for any generation.
Is not the game itself changing, the pace of Test cricket itself – fewer draws? Fewer draws is a good thing because people are playing more shots. There’s no doubt that people want to play shots, they want to score quicker, and it does sometimes compromise your defensive technique. It does, and you know it’s a trade-off. There are risks when you do that and you have to weigh the risks and play the shots. It makes for a more exciting brand of cricket when people see wickets fall and runs being scored, which is good, but also sometimes there are times when you need to have the ability to see o ff difficult periods. It’s not necessarily that you need to play defensive, tight cricket all through the Test match, but you should also have the ability to recognise moments in a Test match when it needs to be done. Whether it’s saving a Test match, it’s the morning of a Test match, whether it’s when the second new ball is to be taken and there’s going to be a good spell. Being able to recognise those moments and being able to adapt and play your game, to have the game to be able to do that, is impor tant. You deciding to play in one particular way all the time, whether that’s defensive or it’s positive, is not necessarily in the best interests of the team. Sometimes the team might need you to grind it out and you should have the skills and the ability to do that and you should take pride in learning those skills and wanting to do that if you don’t have them. The flip side of the coin is that there might be times the team might need you to play positively and want you to play some shots and set up the game. Then you should be able to do that as well. It works both ways, and sometimes I feel that this ability to see o ut a tough perio d and grind out a tough perio d is something that you might lose the ability to do, if batsmen are not careful.
Has the definition of quality batsmanship changed over the course o f your career? Are there just fewer people able to meet that description? Quality batsmanship for me is being able to play according to the situation, having the ability to play all sorts of roles. Quality batsmanship is not only playing great shots or only leaving good balls. Quality batsmanship is having a range to be able to do all things in all conditions consistently over a period of time. Some are more pleasing to the eye and some are less pleasing to the eye. That’s the nature of how we play, and that’s the gift of timing. That’s something you can’t teach. That’s just how we are, but in terms of our value to the team, it’s incredibly important that you explore the range of your skills and all the skills required to succeed in Test cricket. That’s why Test cricket is the greatest form of the game, because it throws up different challenges at different times. You can really see in Test cricket – the successful guys are problem-solvers, who would have found a way or skills to find solutions necessary to succeed in all these situations. Whereas in one-day and T20, you can get away, because of the place where you bat. You could be a No. 6 all your life and you could be fine. You don’t need certain skills or to play certain kinds of bowling. You could make a successful career of it, but you can’t do that in Test cricket, because even a No. 6, in certain times, would be forced or challenged to play good-quality quick bowling. Sometimes in the first session of a Test match or with the second new ball. Test cricket is a bit more of a thoro ugh examination of your skills.
Given your style of batting, when ODI cricket began to grow, did you almost feel that you belonged to another time and another environment? How did you co pe with that?
I did belong to another generation. When I grew up playing cricket, it was all about playing Test cricket. cr icket. It was all about being a gr g r eat Test Test player. In those those days the teams were picked fo r Test cricket, for Test matches, and the same team played the one-dayers. The one-dayers were almost a preparation. Even when we went to England in 1996, I remember the same Test team played the onedayers. They were played beforehand. The senior guys almost saw the one-dayers as preparation for the Test matches. That’s how it was considered as late as ‘95-‘96. But you could sense ODIs were slowly coming. Then, as I started playing, the one-day thing explo ded. I had to to adapt and and I had to to learn lear n how to play a few more shots. I got dropped from the one-day side, I had to fight my way back and learn how to play it. You could see from the way people were playing the first 10-15 overs of the one-day game that a lot of this was going to seep into Test cricket. You are seeing that now in T20 cricket also. That 1996 Wor Wor ld Cup helped one-day cr icket take take off of f in a lot l ot of o f ways. In India India and across acr oss the the wor ld.
Did coping with the demands of ODI cricket benefit your Test game? I’m sure it did. The necessity and keenness to play more shots, to discover more shots, would definitely have helped my Test game, because it would have meant that I could have brought some of that into my game. g ame. In In terms o f shot-making sho t-making and stro ke-making ability abil ity,, it did help my Test game. Did Did you ever worry about being being left out in this changing changing environment? environment? In 1998, when I was dropped, it did worry me a bit. But I also recognised that I needed to learn certain skills. The game was changing around me and I needed to adapt and become better at it. I wanted to play both forms of the game. At no stage did I ever think that I didn’t want to play one-day cricket, that I’d be happy playing just Test cricket. I never wanted to do that. I wanted to play for India all the time. I knew that I had the skills to play one-day cricket. I knew that I could do it. Obviously it took me a litt l ittle le time. I had to pr actise it a little little mor mo r e, and I went went thro thro ugh so me ups and do wns. I didn’t expect to to be dropped dr opped at that stage. stage. It was was disappointing. disappo inting. It It takes takes time to learn lear n and g r ow in international cricket, and I felt that I was just learning and beginning to grow and I had that setback. But I think when I loo k back on it – it doesn’t make any differ ence now – when you you lo ok back at it 15 year yearss later, it’s it’s easier to say it did help me. Being dropped took me away from the game, allowed me to practise, and I just fought my way back. Being dropped and fighting my way back just showed me how much I wanted it. It just showed me my own desire. It did a lot for me just personally, taught me that I can fight my way back out of tough situ si tuations. ations. The 1999 World Cup was a watershed. I had just come back to the team for the World Cup. There was not a lot of one-day cricket, and I got into the side four-five months before the World Cup. So to do well in the World Cup and become the highest scorer or whatever, that sort of gave me the confidence. This was a world event, a world stage, conditions outside India. I did well and it gave me the confidence that that from fro m there on o n I could be fine.
How has the Indian dressing room changed from the time you walked into it and as you leave it now? Dressing rooms are dressing rooms. But when we started we didn’t have a music box in the room. So now it’s gone from no music box to loud music being played. I like the music. Sometimes the taste of some of the guys in music, I might not particularly like. But you have to endure it sometimes. Rap music is not my scene but it seems to be pretty popular nowadays. There’s a lot more support staff now in the changing room than we had in those days. There is a level of professionalism that has
gone up in the way people prepare and in the way they look after themselves and their bodies. That’s ust a reflection reflection o f the game, pro fessionalism in the the game. g ame.
You’ve played against many of the greats of the game and shared a dressing room with some of them as well. Over and above ability, what would you say is the common denominator that can actuall act ually y be imitat imitated? ed? They always put cricket first, irrespective of who they were, what they might have done, what their other interests might have been. Cricket was the most important thing in their lives and doing well in cricket was the most important thing. Everything else was secondary – the fame, the money, the attention. Each one of us might have done things differently, we have other interests, but underneath, deep down, there was a huge desire to put cricket first and to become good cricketers. When I look around, some of the legends I played with, in a world where there is so much external stimulus – and it’s increasing all the time – it’s not that they didn’t have other interests or do anything else in their life and that cricket was everything, no. But at the core of it all, when everything was cleared away, deep down they wanted to be really good cricket players. It wasn’t necessarily about winning and losing. What advice would you give a Rahul Dravid if he was starting his cricket now, in this age? I would definitely tell a young kid that you can learn all the three forms of the game and you should aim to play and succeed in all three forms of the game. I would tell a kid that cricket is also a journey of self-discovery and knowing yourself. You need to spend a lot of time understanding and figuring out yourself as much as you need to spend learning the skills of the game. People talk about the mental side of the game. You need to know what makes you tick, what your fears are, what your doubts are, how you react in situations, how you react under pressure, how you react when you are playing fast bowling and spin bowling. Each one of us is different, and everyone has fears and doubts. Much is said about body language, and neither you nor the Indian team was big on body languag language. e. In In your experience, how much much did did that t hat count in a competito competito r? I feel that now good body language is sometimes equated to being abusive or aggressive. Each of us is different, and I think there are people who show more of their body language in a particular manner, and that’s that’s what what works wor ks for fo r them. them. Fair eno ugh, I’m no t saying that that that’s ’s wrong. wro ng. Body language can mean different things. Just because someone is not over-the-top competitive doesn’t mean he’s not a good competitor. Or it doesn’t mean he’s not in for a fight. There are external people and internal people. It doesn’t mean that people who are more internal are less aggressive. They can be as aggr essive. essive. Sometimes the toug toughest hest bowler bowlers, s, I found, wer weree always the the guys who g ave away away nothing, in terms o f the way they thought – what got them angry, what got them frustrated. They were very, very hard guys, because you knew they were just focused on bowling and doing the best they could. Someone like McGrath, someone like Ambrose. When I played Ambrose, it was a great education for me. He never said a thing. I’ve never heard him speak. I don’t know what he sounded like and I was on tour for four months. He gave you nothing. He pitched every ball on the spot, he was proud of his skill and his craft; he wanted to take wickets and he ran in with intensity. You knew that intensity. You could sense that intensity with them. They did it throughout the day without showing you much. There were a lot of guys who would shout, stare at you, swear. But you knew they did not have the stamina or the fitness to survive till the end of the day. You could tell that they were emotionally violent but that they would fade.
Then there were people like Warne or Murali. Warne was dramatic but he was also incredibly aggressive. You knew that when he got the ball in the hand, he was going to come at you. I judge aggressio agg ression n on the the way way people people perfor m. The bowlers I respected or feared or rated were not the ones who gave me lip or stared at me or abused me. More the ones who, at any stage of the game, when they had the ball in hand, were going to be at me, and they they were g oing to have the skill and the fitness fitness and the ability ability to be aggr ag gr essive.
And that was easily easily picked up? You could tell that very quickly. You can see the spell of a guy who’s just raved and ranted, and after tea you can see he’s just not the same bowler. He’s not doing the discipline thing. The team might require him to be bowling one line and blocking up the game because there’s a big partnership developing. And they are more interested in trying to be aggressive, to do their thing and trying to be the hero. hero . It It becomes abo ut them, them, not about abo ut what what the the team is trying tr ying to do. do . Coming from a country like India, with a technique attuned to playing spin, what was it like tackling Murali and Warne. What were the methods you used to face them? No matter how much practice you have, these guys were great bowlers. They had variation, consistency, control. There were some great spinners during that time – Murali, Warne, and I was lucky to play with Anil and Harbhajan, two guys who bowled well for us. You had Saqlain, who bowled well against us in a couple of series. Daniel Vettori was extremely consistent, bowled good tight lines. So these guys were good. I like to believe we played some of the world’s greatest spinners better better than than some som e of the other other teams did. One of o f the things things is that because because we had so much m uch practice, maybe we read some som e of these guys better. better. One of the things we did better was that whenever a bad ball was bowled, we were able to punish it, and we had the guys who had that skill. There was a certain amount of pressure on the spinners bowling at us, that they had to be at their A game all the time. And when they were at their A game, they knocked us over a few times, no doubt about it. But you had to be at your A game to do well against us, and you can’t be at your A game all the time. time.
What do you make of the general notion that struggling against fast bowling is worse than strugglin strug gling g ag ainst ainst spin? spin? I think that sort of thing is a throwback to the days when there was no helmet, so there was a fear of injury when facing fast bowling. Everyone would have been scared, but I guess those who showed it were consider co nsidered ed weaker. Also, I think think subcontinent tours tour s in the old days wer e not consider co nsidered ed the No. No. 1 tours – people didn’t necessarily value their tours to the subcontinent as much as they valued tours to England, Austr Austr alia or o r South Africa. That has changed no w, and it’s it’s pr etty etty obvious o bvious that with with the the kind of of audience and support that cricket generates in this part of the world, a tour to this part of the world is extremely impo r tant tant now. now. Honestly, Honestly, if you want to to be a g ood oo d batsman batsman you have to pr ove yoursel yo urselff in all co nditio nditions. ns. To say that it is okay to do badly in the subcontinent, to do badly against spin, is not acceptable anymore. It’s slowly slo wly changing. When I look loo k at the the media in England, Eng land, Australia, Australia, Sout So uth h Africa, Afri ca, in the past sometimes they would would almost al most have a casual attitud attitudee to per for mances on subcontinent tours. They ar e also putting putting a lot more focus and emphasis on it now. When some of their players don’t do well on the subcontinental subcontinental tours, tour s, they get criticised and it gets pointed out and questioned, questioned, which is a g oo d thing.
Your captaincy had some good results and at the same time many dramas. What, firstly, did you like about job?
I enjoyed the decision-making process in the middle. The actual captaincy side of things was good. I enjoyed being part of the process of trying to build a team, trying to be creative, to see how we could get the best out of players, see how we could win and compete with the resources we have. Those are sides of captaincy you enjoy. There were some good results. In the end you have to accept that you are judged a lot by the World Cup in India, whether you like it not. Obviously that World Cup didn’t go well and didn’t pan out the way I had hoped it would. So I guess it clouds a lot of what happened. But I think there were some good results and there were some tough times, like with a lot of captains, but the overriding impression that tends to stay is that World Cup. I’m not here to justify anything. I recognise that I always knew that was going to happen. That’s the way it is.
Was captaincy something you were actually looking fo rward to doing? I was vice-captain for a long time and I was part of the process, so yes, I knew that if there was an injury or something happened, I would be the next guy in charge. You’re part of the management and decision-making process, you’re contributing, you’re ticking all the time, so you know you have to be ready. I also knew that me and Sourav were also of the same age and it might not happen. When it did happen, I was extremely keen and excited about trying to do a go od jo b of it. Did the Chappell drama weigh you down as a captain? When you look at it now, should you have done something differently? Maybe behaved out of personality and been confrontational with him? Or did you believe you and Chappell were on the same page but the environment soured very quickly? I think when you look back at any stage of your career, there are things you could have done differently, and that captaincy period is no different. In terms of intention, of what we were trying to achieve, I have no doubt in my mind that you know it was on the right path. Sure, we made mistakes, sure, there were things that we did right, and maybe some of the results didn’t show up right away, they did show up later on, but that’s just the way it is. I’ll be the first one to admit – and my whole career is based on looking to improve and trying to do better – that there were times when I could have done things differently, in the way that I approached it and handled it. Being probably a little less intense. Maybe it came to me that I was so keen to do a go od jo b that I got too caught up in it. I got too tense, too anxious or too keen about it in some ways.
Do you t hink that captains can actually lose teams, and that at o ne point you lost the team? Maybe it is. I don’t know if you lose the team. You can lose players in your team and you have to try to fight and get them back sometimes. Or sometimes it’s phases that players are themselves going through in their own careers that push them away from the team. Then there are times when you are making tough decisions about doing certain things that not everybody in the team likes. Then you need results to go your way. At a time like that, if results don’t go your way then sometimes it becomes easy for people in and around the system to, I guess, pull in different directions. Eventually it does become about results. It’s not all about r esults but results are incredibly important. And I think, especially as we’ve seen in India, results in big tournaments. Why did you st and down from the captaincy after the England to ur in 2007 that had gone well? Maybe I just lost the enjoyment of the job. I got a certain joy out of captaincy, and maybe there was a period on that England trip where I just lost the joy of the job. I’d been playing and captaining nonstop for three years and I also had a young family. I lost a certain enjoyment, and I generally felt that the captain of India should be someone who is extremely eager and excited and wakes up every
morning wanting to captain the team. Maybe in that time there were days that I didn’t feel like that.
When you retired, you called your team-mates and spoke to them before making the announcement. When you quit the captaincy, you just vanished. What was that about? When I look at it in hindsight, I could have handled it better. I didn’t want to make a fuss about it at that stage, and I think a lot of people got upset with me more about how I handled it rather than the decision in itself. So you learn from that, you learn from the mistakes. What is your response t o the impact o f T 20 cricket o n Indian cricket? The reality is that when I grew up, playing Test cricket was the ultimate. It mattered professionally, also in terms of making a living from this game, which does become important at some point. You had to play Test cricket consistently for a long time to do that. But now you don’t need to play Test cricket. The advent of T20 and the IPL has meant that it is possible to make an extremely good living from the game without having to play Test cricket. In the past you had only the cream at the top who were making a good living, but now it has spread a lot more and you have a lot more people who make a very good living. It is one of the great positives of T20 and the IPL. But there is obviously the danger that players might sell themselves short. If they face stumbles or hurdles early in their Test career or in first-class cricket, there might be a few who may choose to stick to T20 because they are better at it and they are making better mo ney from it and they don’t want to risk losing that. India will face this challenge a lot more because a lot more Indian players play in the IPL. So how we address that challenge and go out and make people and players value Test cricket – that will come down to scheduling. We have to schedule more Test matches per year. It will come down to compensation. You’ve got to compensate Test cricketers adequately now. It’ll come down to marketing – how you market Test cricket, glorify its history. It’ll come down to coaches at junior levels, how they talk to their wards, how they inspire them about Test cricket. It’ll be about stories, it’ll be about media. Everyone will have to play their par t. There have been some good examples recently of people who have been good players in T20 and have come out and done well in Test cricket. It’s a good thing for kids to see that you can succeed in all three forms of the game. That’s important. I have no doubt that a lot of the kids playing today in the one-day and Test sides have grown up having Test cricketers to admire. But it’s kids who are my children’s age or a little older, who are now getting interested in the game for the first time and are seeing the IPL, it’s those kinds of children that we need to educate and talk to about Test cricket. The responsibility lies with the ICC and the boards to schedule enough Test matches. They might have to make a few sacrifices in terms of money. I have no doubt that if you play enough Test matches, kids will want to play it. People might not come to the grounds that easily, and that’s why it’s important to explore other avenues – whether it is day-night cricket, the venues where we play it, and the context of Test matches. We have to accept that people don’t have the time, but there is still huge interest for Test cricket. People follow Test cricket, whether it’s on television or the internet, in India as much as elsewhere. In the last few years, in as much as there have been fears, the number of the articles that get written about Test cricket, the number o f people who follow it passionately, who talk to me about Test cricket – that hasn’t changed.
In this T20 age, how must India handle the passing of a great generation of its Test players?
How can the transition be made smooth? At some stage there is going to be a whole new generation of players. I know there are always links between one generation of players and the others; there is always a middle level of management – players who have been around and are still going to be around for a few years. Two or three guys might retire in the next couple of years, who knows? But after that there are going to be guys who are going to be around, and the responsibility is going to lie on these guys to step it up. Guys like Sehwag, Gambhir, Harbhajan, Zaheer, Dhoni himself. Not only as players but also as spokesmen. As people who decide the culture of the team, the way the team is run, the image they want to project of the team, regarding which form of the game is important to this team. It will be a group of players, who, I think, are already seniors, who will set the tone for the next generation coming through. That cycle goes on, that cycle will go on. It’s got to move on from being the team that was led by my gener ation, which is alr eady happening slowly, and will continue to do so o ver the next few years. I’m not saying the seniors need to be replaced. They will be the sounding boards. But the direction and the culture of the team over the next ten years will have to be decided by this capable group of young players.
Virat Kohli is now seen as the leader of the younger generation. Do you see him as your successor in the No. 3 slot ? He’s got the talent – that was obvious from the time he was an Under-19 kid. He didn’t have a really good first year at the Royal Challengers Bangalore, but you could see that there was talent. That’s not going to change. He’s got the talent to succeed at this level and it’s great to see the evolution of this kid, from what we saw at 19 to what he’s becoming now. His consistency of performance and his ability to play in different conditions and score runs in different conditions – that’s great. And he’s got to keep doing that. As with any career and anything that you play for a long time, questions are going to be asked of him. On the technical front, on the physical front, on the mental front. On how he deals with failure, with success, with all that happens around him in Indian cricket. Questions are going to be asked about him, and how he comes up with solutions or answers is going to decide how long o r how successful a career he is g oing to have. Indian cricket can hope that someone like Virat, who has seemingly made that transition from a precocious talent to a performer at the international level, is able to have a long and successful career. The strength of your team is finally built around people who can have long and successful careers. You can then build a team around him and some of the other young guys.
Do you worry about where Indian cricket is at the moment – that it is going to be a very good, competitive team in ODI cricket rather than a successful Test team? Or that all of this depends on ensuring t hat your fast bowlers’ conveyor belt doesn’t go around so quickly? I wouldn’t say I’m worried. I would say there are challenges that Indian cricket faces today. Some of these are challenges that have always been there in the history of our game – whether it is finding good quality fast-bowling allro unders o r finding opening batsmen or finding real fast bowlers. These challenges have to be addressed, and it’s no point worrying. There are lots of positives about Indian cricket. It’s going to be a whole new level of thinking, a whole new level of leadership, of thought, that is required. Like I said, of how the team is going to project itself. You can’t just let things flow. If we just let things happen, they will happen. You might get lucky, you might suddenly find a brilliant player or a brilliant fast-bowling allrounder from somewhere, but there needs to be serious thought put into the
way the team is, what is the way forward, and how we want to see the Indian team, not today but ten years ahead. When we got together as a group of guys in 2000, it was important for me how the team was projected. We were going through a rough patch, we had come out of this match-fixing thing. We were always known as poor travellers. It was said we were scared of fast bowling, we were arrogant, rude, or that because of match-fixing you can’t trust anyone. These were the things that you wanted to change. Ten years later, now there is another challenge. Each team has its o wn image; that’s what you want to change. Maybe this team now has the image where it’s said they are very good one-day players, they are no t that good as Test players. You keep hearing talk about what impact the IPL might have, how everyone will only want to play IPL, and how it might affect our Test cricket. Hopefully these guys will go on to challenge that notion, to show us that it is not the case. Sharda Ugra is a senior editor at ESPNcricinfo, where this interview was first published on March 29, 2012
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‘Everything that has given cricket its power has started from the fan’ RAHUL DRAVID
In December 2011, Rahul Dravid was invited to deliver the Bradman Oration in Canberra during India’s tour to Australia. His speech was wide-ranging, meticulous and memorable, touching on issues from striking a balance between the three formats, to measures against corruption in cricket.
T hank you for inviting me to deliver the Bradman Oration. The respect and the regard that came
with the invitation to speak tonig ht are deeply appreciated.
I realise a very distinguished list of gentlemen have preceded me in the ten years that the Bradman Oration has been held. I know that this Oration is held every year to appreciate the life and career of Sir Don Bradman, a great Australian and a great cricketer. I understand that I am supposed to speak about cricket and issues in the game – and I will. Yet first, before all else, I must say that I find myself humbled by the venue we find ourselves in. Even though there is neither a pitch in sight, nor stumps or bat and balls, as a cricketer I feel I stand on very sacred ground tonight. When I was told that I would be speaking at the National War Memorial I thought of how often and how meaninglessly the words “war”, “battle”, “fight” are used to describe cricket matches. Yes, we cricketers devote the better part of our adult lives to being prepared to perform for our countries, to persist and compete as intensely as we can – and more. This building, however, recognises the men and women who lived out the words – war, battle, fight – for real and then gave it all up for their country, their lives left incomplete, futures extinguished. The people of both our countries are often told that cricket is the one thing that brings Indians and Australians together. That cricket is our single common denominator. India’s first Test series as a free country was played against Australia, in November 1947, three months after our independence. Yet the histories of our countries are linked together far more deeply than we think, and further back in time than 1947. We share something else other than cricket. Before they played the first Test match against each other, Indians and Australians fought wars together, on the same side. In Gallipoli, where, along with thousands of Australians, over 1300 Indians also lost their lives. In World War II, there were Indian and Australian soldiers in El Alamein, Nor th Africa, in the Syria-Lebanon campaign, in Burma, in the battle for Singapore. Before we were competitors, Indians and Australians were comrades. So it is only appropriate that we are here this evening at the Australian War Memorial, where along with celebrating cricket and cricketers, we remember the unknown soldiers of both nations. It is, however, incongruous that I, an Indian, happen to be the first cricketer from outside Australia invited to deliver the Bradman Oration. I don’t say that only because Sir Don once scored a hundred befor e lunch at Lor d’s and my hundred at Lord’s this year took almost an entire day. But seriously, Sir Don played just five Tests against India; that was in the fir st India-Australia ser ies in 1947-48, which was to be his last season at home. He didn’t even play in India, and remains the most venerated cricketer in India not to have played there. We know that he set foot in India, though,
in May 1953, when on his way to England to report on the Ashes for an English newspaper, his plane stopped in Calcutta airport. There were said to be close to a thousand people waiting to greet him. As you know, he was a very private person, and so he got into an army jeep and rushed into a barricaded building, annoyed with the airline for having “breached confidentiality”. That was all Indians of the time saw of Bradman, who remains a mythical figure. For one generation of fans in my country, those who grew up in the 1930s, when India was still under British rule, Bradman represented a cricketing excellence that belonged to somewhere outside England. To a country taking its first steps in Test cricket that meant something. His success against England at that time was thought of as our personal success. He was striking one for all of us ruled by the common enemy. Or as your country has so poetically called them, the Poms. There are two stories that I thought I should bring to your notice. June 28, 1930, the day Bradman scored 254 at Lord’s against England, was also the day Jawaharlal Nehru was arrested by the police. Nehru was, at the time, one of the most prominent leaders of the Indian independence movement, and later, independent India’s first prime minister. The coincidence of the two events was noted by a young boy, KN Prabhu, who was both nationalist and cr icket fan and later became independent India’s foremost cricket writer. In the ‘30s, as Nehru went in and out of jail, Bradman went after the England bowling, and for KN Prabhu he became a kind of avenging angel. There’s another story I’ve heard, about the day in 1933 when the news reached India that Bradman’s record for the highest Test score of 334 had been broken by Wally Hammond. As much as we love our records, they say some Indian fans at the time were not exactly happy. Now, there’s a tale that a few even wanted to wear black bands to mourn the fact that this precious record that belonged to Australia – and by extension, us – had gone back. To an Englishman. We will never know if this is true, if black bands were ever worn, but as journalists sometimes tell me, why let facts get in the way of a g ood story. My own link with Bradman was much like that of most other Indians – through history books, some old video fo otage and his wise wor ds. About leaving the game better than you fo und it. About playing it positively, as Bradman, then a selector, told Richie Benaud before the 1960-61 West Indies tour of Australia. Of sending the right message out from cricket to its public. Of players being temporary trustees of a gr eat game. While there may be very little similarity in our records or our strike rates or our fielding – and I can say this only today, in front of all of you – I am actually pleased that I share something very important with Sir Don. He was, primarily, like me, a No. 3 batsman. It is a tough, tough job. We’re the ones who make life easier for the kings of batting, the middle order that follows us. Bradman did that with a bit more success and style than I did. He dominated bowling attacks and put bums on seats; if I bat for any length of time I am more likely to bore people to sleep. Still, it is nice to have batted for a long time in a position whose benchmark is, in fact, the benchmark for batsmanship itself. Before he retired from public life in his 80s, I do know that Bradman watched Sunil Gavaskar’s gener ation play a ser ies in Australia. I remember the excitement that went thro ugh Indian cricket when we heard the news that Bradman had seen Sachin Tendulkar bat on TV and thought he batted like him. It was more than mere approval, it was as if the great Don had finally passed on his torch. Not to an
Aussie or an Englishman or a West Indian. But to one of our own. One of the things Bradman said has stayed in my mind. That the finest of athletes had, along with skill, a few more essential qualities: the ability to conduct their life with dignity, with integrity, with cour age and modesty. All this, he believed, was totally compatible with pride, ambition, determination and competitiveness. Maybe those words should be put up in cricket dressing rooms all over the world. As all of you know, Don Bradman passed away on February 25, 2001, two days before the India v Australia series was to begin in Mumbai. Whenever an important figure in cricket leaves us, cricket’s global community pauses in the midst of contests and debates to remember what he represented, what he stood for, and Bradman was the pinnacle. The standard against which all Test batsmen must take guard. The ser ies that followed two days after Bradman’s death later went on to beco me what many believe was one of the greatest in cricket. It is a ser ies, I’d like to believe, he would have enjoyed fo llowing. A fierce contest between bat and ball went down to the final session of the final day of the final Test. Between an Australian team that had risen to their most imposing powers and a young Indian team determined to rewrite some chapters of its own history. The 2001 series contained high-quality cricket from both sides and had a deep impact on the careers of those who played a part in it. The Australians were near unbeatable in the first half of the new decade, both home and away. As others floundered against them, India became the only team that competed with them on even terms. India kept answering questions put to them by the Australians and asking a few themselves. The quality demanded of those co ntests, sometimes acr imonious, sometimes uplifting, made us, the Indian team, grow and rise. As individuals, we were asked to play to the absolute outer limits of our capabilities, and we often extended them. When we toured in 2007-08, I thought it was going to be my last tour of Australia. The Australians thought it was going to be the last time they would be seeing Sachin Tendulkar on their shores. He received warm standing ovations from wonderful crowds all around the country. Well, like a few creaking Terminators, we’re back. Older, wiser and, I hope, improved. If both teams look back to their 2007-08 series in Australia, they will know that they should have done things a little differently in the Sydney Test. But I think both sides have moved on from there; we’ve played each other twice in India already and relations between the two teams are much better than they have been as far as I can remember. Thanks to the IPL, Indians and Australians have even shared dressing rooms. Shane Watson’s involvement in Rajasthan, Mike Hussey’s r ole with Chennai, to mention a few, are g reatly appreciated back home. And even Shane Warne likes India now. I really enjoyed playing alongside him at Rajasthan last season and can confidently report to you that he is not eating imported baked beans anymor e. In fact, loo king at him, it seems he is not eating anything. It is often said that cricketers are ambassadors for their country; when there’s a match to be won, sometimes we think that is an unreasonable demand. After all, what would career diplomats do if the result of a Test series depended on them, say, walking? But as ties between India and Australia have strengthened and our contests have become more frequent, we realise that as Indian players we stand for a vast, varied, often unfathomable and endlessly fascinating co untry.
At the moment, to much of the outside world, Indian cricket represents only two things – money and power. Yes, that aspect of Indian cricket is a part of the whole, but it is not the complete picture. As a player, as a proud and privileged member of the Indian cricket team, I want to say that this onedimensional, often clichéd, image, r elentlessly repeated, is not what Indian cricket is r eally all about. I cannot take all of you into the towns and villages our players come from and introduce you to their families, teachers, coaches, mentors and team-mates who made them international cricketers. I cannot take all of you here to India to show you the belief, struggle, effort and sacrifice from hundreds of people that runs through our game. As I stand here today, it is important for me to bring Indian cricket and its own remarkable story to you. I believe it is very necessary that cricketing nations try to find out about each other, try to understand each other and the different role cricket plays in different countries, because ours is, eventually, a very small world. In India, cricket is a buzzing, humming, living entity going through a most remarkable time, like no other in our cricketing history. In this last decade, the Indian team represents, more than ever before, the country we come from – of people from vastly different cultures, who speak different languages, follow different religions, belong to all classes of society. I went around our dressing room to work out how many languages could be spoken in there and the number I have arrived at is: 15, including Shona and Afrikaans. Most foreign captains, I think, would baulk at the idea. But when I led India, I enjoyed it. I marvelled at the range of difference and the ability of people from so many different backgrounds to share a dressing room, to accept, accommodate and respect that difference. In a world growing more insular, that is a precious quality to acquire, because it stays for life and helps you understand people better, understand the significance of the other. Let me tell you one of my favourite stories from my Under-19 days, when the India U-19 team played a match against the New Zealand junior team. We had two bowlers in the team, one from the nor th Indian state of Uttar Pradesh – he spoke only Hindi, which is usually a link language for players from all over India, ahead even of English. It should have been all right, except the other bowler came from Kerala, in the deep south, and he spoke only the state’s regional language, Malayalam. Now even that should have been okay as they were both bowlers and wouldn’t really need to talk to each other much on the field. Yet in one game they happened to come together at the crease. In the dressing room we were in splits, wondering how they were going to manage the business of a partnership, calling for runs or sharing the strike. Neither man could understand a word of what the other was saying, and they were batting together. This could only happen in Indian cricket. Except that these two guys came up with a 100-run partnership. Their common language was cricket and that worked out just fine. The everyday richness of Indian cricket lies right there, not in the news you hear about milliondollar deals and television rights. When I look back over the 25 years I’ve spent in cricket, I realise two things. First, rather alarmingly, that I am the oldest man in the team, older to even Sachin, by three months. More importantly, I realise that Indian cricket actually reflects our country’s own growth story during this time. Cricket is so much a part of our national fabric that as India – its economy, society and popular culture – transfor med itself, so did our most-loved sport. As players we are appreciative beneficiaries of the financial strength of Indian cricket, but we are
more than just mascots of that economic power. The caricature often made of Indian cricket and its cricketers in the rest of the world is that we are pampered superstars – overpaid, underworked, treated like a cross between royalty and rock stars. Yes, the Indian team has an enormous emotional following, and we do need secur ity when we go ar ound the country as a group. It is also why we make it a point to always try to co nduct our selves with composur e and dignity. On tour, I must point out, we don’t attack fans or do drugs or get into drunken theatrics. And at home, despite what some of you may have heard, we don’t live in mansions with swimming pools. The news about the money may well overpower all else, but along with it, our cricket is full of stories the outside world does not see. Television rights generated around Indian cricket are much talked about. Let me tell you what television has done to our game. A sport that was largely played and patronised by princes and businessmen in traditional urban centres – cities like Bombay, Bangalore, Chennai, Baroda, Hyderabad, Delhi – has begun to pull in cricketers from everywhere. As the earnings from Indian cricket have grown in the past two decades, mainly through television, the BCCI has spread revenues to various pockets in the country and improved where we play. The field is now spread wider than it ever has been, the gr ound covered by Indian cricket has shifted. Twenty-seven teams compete in our national championship, the Ranji Trophy. Last season Rajasthan, a state best known for its palaces, for tresses and tour ism, won the Ranji Trophy title for the first time in its history. The national one-day championship also had a first-time winner in the newly formed state of Jharkhand, where our captain, MS Dhoni, comes from. The growth and scale of cricket on our televisions was the engine of this population shift. Like Bradman was the boy from Bowral, a stream of Indian cricketers now comes from what you could call India’s outback. Zaheer Khan belongs to the Maharashtra heartland, from a town that didn’t have even one proper turf wicket. He could have been an instrumentation engineer but was drawn to cr icket by TV, and modelled his bowling by practising in front of the mirror on his cupboard at home. He first bowled with a proper cricket ball at the age of 17. One day, out of nowhere, a boy from a village in Gujarat turned up as India’s fastest bowler. After Munaf Patel made his debut for India, the road from the nearest railway station to his village had to be improved because journalists and TV crews from the cities kept landing up there. We are delighted that Umesh Yadav didn’t become a policeman, like he was planning, and turned to cricket instead. He is the first cricketer from the central Indian first-class team of Vidarbha to play Test cricket. Virender Sehwag, it shouldn’t surprise you, belongs to the wild west just outside Delhi. He had to be enrolled in a college which had a good cricket programme and travelled 84km every day by bus to get to pr actice and matches. Every player in this room wearing an India blazer has a story like this. Here, ladies and gentlemen, is the heart and soul of Indian cricket. Playing for India completely changes our lives. The game has given us a chance to pay back our debt to all those who gave their time, energy and resources for us to be better cricketers: we can build new homes for our parents, get our siblings married off in style, give our families very comfortable lives.
The Indian cricket team is, in fact, India itself in microcosm. A sport that was played first by princes, then their subor dinates, then the urban elite, is now played by all of India. Cricket, as my two U-19 team-mates pro ved, is India’s most widely spoken language. Even Indian cinema has its reg ional favourites; a movie star in the south may not be popular in the north. But a cricketer? Loved everywhere. It is also a very tough environment to grow up in – criticism can be severe, responses to victory and defeat extreme. There are invasions of privacy and stones have been thrown at our homes after some defeats. It takes time getting used to – extreme reactions can fill us with anger. But every cricketer realises at some stage of his career that the Indian cricket fan is best understood by remembering the sentiment of the majority, not the actions of a minor ity. One of the things that has always lifted me as a player is looking out of the team bus when we travel somewhere in India. When people see the Indian bus going by, see some of us sitting with our curtains drawn back, it always amazes me how much they light up. There is an instantaneous smile, directed not just at the player they see but at the game we play, that, for whatever reason, means something to people’s lives. Win or lose, the man on the street will smile and give you a wave. After India won the World Cup this year, our players were not congratulated as much as they were thanked by people they ran into. “You have g iven us ever ything,” they were told, “all of us have won”. Cricket in India now stands not just for spor t but possibility, hope, opportunities. On our way to the Indian team, we know of so many of our team-mates, some of whom may have been equally or mor e talented than those sitting her e, who missed out. When I started out, for a young Indian, cricket was the ultimate gamble – all or nothing, no safety nets. No second chances for those without an education or a college degree, or second careers. Indian cricket’s wealth now means a wider pool of well-paid cricketers, even at first-class level. For those of us who make it to the Indian team, cricket is not merely our livelihood, it is a gift we have been given. Without the game, we would just be average people leading averag e lives. As Indian cricketers, our sport has given us the chance to do something worthwhile with our lives. How many people co uld say that? This is the time Indian cricket should be flowering. We are the world champions in the short game, and over the space of the next 12 months should be involved in a tight contest with Australia, South Africa and England to determine which of us is the world’s strongest Test team. Yet I believe this is also a time for introspection within our game, not only in India but all over the world. We have been given some alerts, and responding to them quickly is the smart thing to do. I was surprised a few months ago to see the lack of crowds in an ODI series featuring India. By that I don’t mean the lack of full houses. I think it was the sight of empty stands I found somewhat alarming. India played their first one-day international at home in November 1981, when I was nine. Between then and now India have played 227 ODIs at home; the October five-match series against England was the first time that the gr ounds have not been full for an ODI series featuring the Indian team. In the summer of 1998 I played in a one-dayer against Kenya in Kolkata and the Eden Gardens was full. Our next game was held in the 48-degr ee heat of Gwalior and the stands were heaving. The October series against England was the first one at home after India’s World Cup win. It was called the “revenge” series, meant to wipe away the memory of a forgettable tour of England. India
kept winning ever y game and yet the stands did not fill up. Five days after a 5-0 victor y 95,000 turned up to watch India’s first For mula 1 race. A few weeks later I played in a Test match against West Indies in Kolkata, in front of what was the lowest turnout in Eden Gardens’ history. Yes we still wanted to win and our intensity did not dip, but at the end of the day we are performers, entertainers, and we love an audience. The audience amplifies everything you are doing: the bigger the crowd, the bigger the occasion, its magnitude, its emotion. When I think about the Eden Gardens crowds this year, I wonder what the famous Calcutta Test of 2001 would have felt like with 50,000 people less watching us. Australia and South Africa played an exciting and thrilling Test series recently, and two great Test matches produced some fantastic performances from players of both teams, but the matches were sadly played in front of sparse cr owds. It is not the numbers that Test players need, it is the atmosphere of a Test that every player wants to revel in and draw energy from. My first reaction to the lack of crowds for cricket was that there had been a lot of cricket and so perhaps a certain amount of spectator fatigue. That is too simplistic a view; it’s the easy thing to say, and it might not be the only thing. The India v England ODI series had no context, because the two countries had played each other in four Tests and five ODIs just a few weeks before. When India and West Indies played ODIs a month after that, the grounds were full, but this time the matches were played in smaller venues that didn’t host too much international cricket. Maybe our clues are all there and we must remain vig ilant. Unlike in Australia or England, Indian cricket has never had to compete with other sports for a share of revenues, mind space or crowd attendance at international matches. The lack of crowds may not directly impact revenues or how important the sport is to Indians, but we do need to accept that there has definitely been a change in temperature o ver, I think, the last two years. Whatever the reasons are – maybe it is too much cricket or too little by way of comfort for spectators – the fan has sent us a message and we must listen. This is not mere sentimentality. Empty stands do not make for good television. Bad television can lead to a fall in ratings. The fall in ratings will be felt by media planners and advertisers looking elsewhere. If that happens, it is hard to see television rights around cricket being as sought-after as they have been in the last 15 years. And where does that leave everyone? I’m not trying to be an economist or doomsday prophet – this is just how I see it. Let us not be so satisfied with the present, with deals and finances in hand, that we get blindsided. Everything that has given cricket its power and influence in the world of sports has started from that fan in the stadium. They deserve our respect and let us not take them for gr anted. Disrespecting fans is disrespecting the game. The fans have stood by o ur game through everything. When we play, we need to think of them. As players, the balance between competitiveness and fairness can be tough but it must be found. If we stand up for the game’s basic decencies, it will be far easier to tackle the bigger dangers – whether it is finding shortcuts to easy money or being lured by the scourge of spot-fixing and contemplating any involvement with the betting industry. Cricket’s financial success means it will face threats from outside the game and keep facing them. The last two decades have proved this over and over again. The internet and modern technology may ust end up being a step ahead of every anti-corruption regulation in place in the game. As players, the
one way we can stay ahead is if we are willing to be monitor ed and reg ulated closely. Even if it means giving up a little bit of freedom of movement and privacy. If it means undergoing dope tests, let us never say no. If it means undergoing lie-detector tests, let us understand the technology, what purpose it serves, and accept it. Now lie detectors are by no means perfect but they could actually help the innocent clear their names. Similarly, we should not object to having our finances scr utinised, if that is what is required. When the first anti-corruption measures were put into place, we did moan a little bit about being accredited and depositing our cell phones with the manager. But now we must treat it like we do airport security, because we know it is for our own good and our own security. Players should be ready to give up a little personal space and personal comfort for this game which has given us so much. If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear. Other sports have borrowed from cricket’s anti-corruption measures to set up their own ethical governance programmes, and we must take pride in belonging to a spor t that is pro fessional and progressive. One of the biggest challenges that the game must respond to today, I believe, is charting out a clear road map for the three formats. We now realise that the sport’s three formats cannot be played in equal numbers – that will only throw scheduling and the true development of players completely off gear. There is a place for all three formats, though we are the only sport I can think of which has three versions. Cricket must treasure this originality. These three versions require different skills; skills that have evolved, grown, changed over the last four decades, one impacting on the other. Test cricket is the go ld standard. It is the form the players want to play. The 50-over game is the one that has kept cricket’s revenues alive for mor e than three decades now. T20 has come upon us and it is the for mat people, the fans, want to see. Cricket must find a middle path, it must scale down this mad merry-go -round that teams and players find themselves in: heading off for two-Test tours and seven-match ODI series with a few T20s thrown in. Test cricket deserves to be protected, it is what the world’s best know they will be judged by. Where I come from, nation versus nation is what got people interested in cricket in the first place. When I hear the news that a country is playing without some of its best players, I always wonder: what do their fans think? People may not be able to turn up to watch Test cricket, but everyone follows the scores. We may not fill 65,000 capacity stadiums for Test matches, but we must actively fight to g et as many as we can in, to cr eate a Test match environment that the players and the fans feed off. Anything but the sight of Tests played on empty gr ounds. For that, we have got to play Test cricket that people can watch. I don’t think day-night Tests or a Test championship should be dismissed. In March of last year I played a day-night first-class game in Abu Dhabi for the MCC, and my experience from that was that day-night Test cricket is an idea seriously worth exploring. There may be some challenges in places where there is dew, but the visibility and durability of the pink cr icket ball was not an issue. Similarly a Test championship, with every team and player driving themselves to be winners of a soug ht-after title, seems like it would have a context to ever y game. Keeping Tests alive may mean different innovations in different countries – maybe taking it to
smaller cities, playing it in grounds with smaller capacities, like New Zealand has thought of doing, maybe reviving some old venues in the West Indies, like the old Recr eation Ground in Antigua. When I was around seven years old, I remember my father taking a Friday off so that we could watch three days of Test cricket together. On occasions he couldn’t, I would accompany one of his friends, just to soak in a day of Test cricket and watch the drama slowly unfold. What we have to do is find a way to ensure that Test matches fit into 21 st-century life, through timing, environments and the venues they are held in. I am still convinced it can be done, even in our fast-moving world with its short attention spans. We will often get told that Test matches don’t make financial sense, but no o ne ever fell in love with Test cricket because they wanted to be a businessman. Not everything of value comes at a price. There is a proposal doing the rounds about scrapping the 50-over game completely. I am not sure I agr ee with that. I certainly know that the 50-over game helped us innovate strokes in our batting which we were then able to take into Test matches. We all know that the 50-over game has been responsible for improving fielding standards all over the wor ld. The future may well lie in playing one-day internationals centred around ICC events, like the Champions Trophy and the World Cups. This would ensure that all 50-over matches would build up for those tournaments. That will cut back the number of one-day internationals played every year, but at least those matches will have context. Since, I think, 1995, people have been saying that there is too much meaningless one-day cr icket. Maybe it’s finally time to do something about it. The T20 game, as we know, has as many critics as it has supporters in the public. Given that an acceptable strike rate in T20 these days is about 120, I should probably complain about it the most! The crowd and revenue numbers, though, tell us that if we don’t handle T20 correctly, we may well have more and more private players stepping in to offer not just slices of pie but maybe even bigger pies themselves. So I’ll reiterate what I’ve just said very quickly because balancing the three for mats is impor tant: We have Test cricket, like we have always had, nation versus nation, but carefully scheduled to attract crowds and planned fairly so that every Test-playing country gets its fair share of Tests. And playing for a championship or a cup, not just a ranking. The 50-overs format focused around fewer, significant multi-nation ICC events like the Champions Trophy and the World Cup. In the four-year cycle between World Cups, plan the ODI calendar and devise rankings around these few important events. Anything makes more sense than seven-match ODI series. The best role for T20 is as a domestic competition through official leagues, which will make it financially attractive for cricketers. That could also keep cricket viable in countries where it fights for space and attention. Because the game is bigger than us all, we must think way ahead of how it stands today. Where do we want it to be in the year 2020? Or, say, in 2027, when it will be 150 years since the first Test match was played? If you think about it, cricket has been with us longer than the modern motor car. It existed before modern air travel took off. As much as cricket’s revenues are important to its growth, its traditions and its vibrancy are a necessary part of its progress in the future. We shouldn’t let either go because we played too much of one format and too little of the other.
Professionalism has given cricketers of my generation privileged lives, and we know it, even though you may often hear us whining about burnout, travel, and the lack of recovery time. Whenever we begin to get into that mindset, it’s good to remember a piece of Sachin’s conversation with Bradman. Sachin told us that he had asked Sir Don how he had mentally prepared for big g ames, what his routines were. Sir Don said that well before a game he would go to work, and after the game go back to work. Whenever a cricketer feels a whinge coming on, that would be good to remember. Before I conclude, I also want to talk briefly about an experience I have often had over the course of my career. It is not to do with individuals or incidents but is one I believe is important to share. I have sometimes found myself in the middle of a big game, standing at slip or even at the non-striker’s end, and suddenly realised that everything else has vanished. At that moment, all that exists is the contest and the very real sense of the joy that comes from playing the game. It is an almost meditative experience, where you reconnect with the game just like you did years ago, when you first began, when you hit your first boundary, took your first catch, scored your first century, or were involved in a big victory. It lasts for a very fleeting passage of time, but it is a very precious instant, and every cricketer should hang on to it. I know it is utterly fanciful to expect professional cricketers to play the game like amateurs, but the trick, I believe, is taking the spirit of the amateur – of discovery, of learning, of pure joy, of playing by the rules – into our profession. Taking it to practice or play, even when there’s an epidemic of white-line fever breaking out all over the field. In every cricketer there lies a competitor who hates losing, and yes, winning matters. But it is not the only thing that matters when you play cricket. How it is played is as important for every member of every team, because every game we play leaves a footprint in cricket’s history. We must never forget that. What we do as professionals is easily carried over into the amateur game, in every way – batting, bowling, fielding, appealing, celebration, dissent, argument. In the players of 2027 we will see a reflection of this time and of ourselves, and it had better not annoy or anguish us 50-year-olds. As the game’s custodians, it is important we are not tempted by the short-term gains of the backward step. We can be r emembered for being the gener ation that could take the giant stride.
The numbers
When Dravid was at the crease, the team scored 32,039 runs, which amounted to 35.6% of the total runs that India made in the Tests in which Dravid played. Dravid is also the only batsman to be involved in more than 700 partnerships; in fact, no other batsman has touched 650 so far.
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The man they couldn’t move S RAJESH
T he stat that perhaps best sums up Rahul Dravid is not the number of runs or hundreds he made but
the number of balls he consumed – 46,563, over a career that spanned fifteen and a half years.
In 286 Test innings, Dravid played 31,258 balls. Given that no other batsman has faced more than 29,000 deliveries in that format, it puts into perspective the sheer effort that went into scoring the 13,288 runs he did in Tests. There were other batsmen who had more natural talent, or were more elegant, aggressive, and exciting to watch. In terms of dedication to craft and working on achieving perfection, though, Dravid ranks second to none. That dedication fetched him just rewards, ensuring he scored runs in every country he played in, and finished his Test career as the second-highest rungetter, next only to Sachin Tendulkar. And then there was Dravid the one-day player. For someone whose playing style was thought to be suited only to Test cricket, finishing eighth on the list of most ODIs played, and with the seventhhighest run aggregate, is no mean achievement. Dravid never had the attacking ability of a Tendulkar or a Brian Lara, but it’s a testament to his adaptability that he played 344 ODIs, scored 10, 889 runs, and struck 12 centuries and 83 fifties, including one off 22 balls, which remains the second-fastest by an Indian. Apart from all that, he kept wicket in 73 ODIs, and yet never allowed that to adversely affect his batting – in fact, his batting stats improved when he kept wicket. He also led India in 79 matches, and achieved the second-best win-loss record among Indians who captained in at least 50 ODIs. For any cricketer this is a staggering resume; for one considered only a Test specialist, it borders on the unbelievable.
Dravid in Tests From the time he scored 95 in his first Test innings, against England at Lord’s, it was clear he was an exceptional batting talent, but even so, not many would have envisaged a career that spanned 164 Test matches. His maiden Test century, a sparkling 148 against a tough South African attack in Johannesburg, further confirmed his class, and from there it was a journey of several highs, interspersed with its share of lows. For most of his career, consistency was one of Dravid’s fortes. For instance, in the first ten series that he played (excluding one-off Tests), he averaged more than 40 in seven. His best phase, though, was the four-year period from the middle of 2002 to 2006, when he scored heavily pretty much everywhere he went: in 16 series during this time, he averaged more than 49 in 13, and nine times over 75. More importantly, he scored those runs in tough batting conditions, and in overseas Tests that led to wins abroad, a phenomenon that till then had been pretty rare in Indian cricket. During this period his overseas average was an exceptional 77.07. A slump followed, almost inevitably, from the middle of 2006 to 2008, when he struggled in South
Africa, England, Australia and Sri Lanka. There was talk, inevitably again, that Dravid should quit Tests, but in his last three years he came out of that trough pr etty well. He was among the r uns in New Zealand, West Indies, and – in what must rank as arguably his best series, given the lack of batting support – in England in 2011, when he fought the home team’s pace attack almost single-handed, scoring 461 runs at 76.83. His last series, in Australia, was admittedly a huge disappointment, but despite that he averaged mor e than 52 in his last 33 Tests.
Rahul Dravid’s Test career Period
Home a ve
Away ave
9/24
48.91
53.20
68.40
14/22
55.71
77.07
1460
31.06
3/7
31.60
30.66
33
2779
52.43
10/10
75.31
42.54
164
13,288
52.31
36/63
51.35
53.03
Tes ts
Runs
Average
100s /50s
T ill Mar 31, 2002
55
4329
50.92
Apr 2002-Jul 2006
49
4720
Aug 2006-Dec 2008
27
Jan 2009 onwards Career
At home overseas As mentioned above, perhaps the most significant aspect of Dravid’s Test career was that the runs he scored contributed significantly to India’s wins, mainly overseas. Overall, Dravid scored 5131 runs in Test wins, next only to Tendulkar’s 5594. However, in overseas Test wins, he was often India’s main man, even more than Tendulkar. India won 15 Tests abroad during Dravid’s career (excluding matches in Bangladesh and Zimbabwe), and in those games he scored 1577 runs at 65.70 – both aggregate and average higher than Tendulkar ’s. Quite fittingly, Dravid was Man of the Match in the last overseas Test win that India achieved during his career – his second-innings 112 and match tally of 152 were largely instrumental in India winning a low-scoring game in Kingston by 63 runs. In all, eight of his 11 Man-of-the-Match awards came in overseas Tests, and five in overseas wins, including unforgettable performances at Headingley (2002), Adelaide (2003), Rawalpindi (2004) and Kingston (2006). Tendulkar won only five of his 14 Man-of-the-Match awards overseas, and only one in a win (excluding Tests in Bangladesh). In fact, no Indian has won as many match awards overseas as Dravid has. (Remember, though, that this award wasn’t always around during the days of some of India’s earlier players.) As well as helping India win overseas, Dravid also scored mountains of runs in draws overseas, averaging more than 75 in those matches, with ten centuries in 32 Tests. Two of those hundreds were in the drawn game in Hamilton in 1999, one of two times he scored a century in each innings of a Test. In fact, he is one o f only three Indians to achieve this feat – Sunil Gavaskar and Vijay Hazare are the others.
Indian batsmen in overseas Tests, in wins and draws Batsman
Won Drawn Runs Averag e 100s/50s Runs Averag e 100s/50s Tests Tests
Rahul Dravid
15
1577
65.70
4/7
32
3083
75.19
10/17
Sachin Tendulkar
13
1219
60.95
5/3
42
3484
71.10
11/18
VVS Laxman
14
1111
52 90
2/8
26
1931
58 51
4/14
Virender Sehwag
11
965
56.76
3/1
15
1386
57.75
4/4
Sunil Gavas kar 9
756
50.40
3/3
30
2697
64.21
9/12
Sourav Ganguly
9
617
51.41
1/5
21
1601
59.29
5/8
Gundappa Viswanath
6
533
53.30
2/3
19
1040
40.00
2/8
Excluding Tests in Banglad esh and Zimbabwe
No. 1 at No. 3 India didn’t always have the luxury of solid opening pairs through Dravid’s career, which made his presence at No. 3 all the more important. He is the only batsman at the moment to have scored more than 10,000 runs at that position, and he did it at a superb average too, scoring close to 53 runs per dismissal. At No. 3, though, his home record was better – he averaged 54.81 in India and 51.35 abroad. In overseas Tests excluding Bangladesh and Zimbabwe, his average at No. 3 fell marginally below 50, to 48.75.
Highest run-getters at No. 3 in Tests Bats man
Innings
Runs
Averag e
100s /50s
Rahul Dravid
219
10, 524
52.88
28/50
Ricky Ponting
196
9904
56.27
32/43
Kumar Sangakkar a
160
8716
58.10
27/36
Don Bradman
56
5078
103.63
20/10
Richie Richar dso n
107
4711
47.11
14/21
Rohan Kanhai
90
4689
52.68
13/20
David Boon
111
4412
45.58
13/20
Ian Chappell
91
4279
50.94
13/22
Dravid’s stats at No. 3 sorted by the score at which he came in to bat present some interesting numbers. He averaged only 38 when the first wicket fell with ten runs or fewer on the board, but on the 18 occasions when the first wicket fell at zero, he averaged 51.94, with three centuries and as many fifties. In fact, his highest Test score, 270, came when he came out to bat second ball, after Virender Sehwag had fallen to Shoaib Akhtar off the first ball of the innings, in Rawalpindi. He also had plenty of success when he came in to bat fairly early, with the score between 11 and 20. The 148 at Headingley in 2002 came after the fir st wicket fell for 15, while the 217 that followed in the next Test, at The Oval, was scor ed after the fir st wicket fell at 18. He obviously also relished coming in to bat after the openers had given the team a solid start. On the 66 occasions when they added more than 50, Dravid averaged 62.41. Among his key knocks in such situations was the 233 in Adelaide in 2003 – that match-winning effort came after the openers had added 66.
Dravid at No. 3 by point-of-entry scores Po int of entry
Innings
Runs
Avera ge
100s / 50s
10 or below
66
2322
38.07
4/12
11 to 20
45
2482
60.54
7/9
21 to 50
42
1913
53.14
4/11
51 and above
66
3807
62.41
13/18
And here’s a comparison with a couple of other top-class No. 3 batsmen by their point-of-entry averages. Ricky Ponting and Kumar Sangakkara have better averages when they have come in to bat with the scor e at 10 or under, while Don Bradman’s stats are predictably beyond compare.
Other No. 3 batsmen by point-of-entry scores Point of entry
BradmanRuns/ ave
100s/ 50s
1403/127.55
5/1
2359/53.61
9/10
2948/57.80
8/13
11 to 20
524/52.40
2/1
975/46.43
1/8
1370/48.93
3/9
21 to 50
1689/112.60
7/5
3631/69.83
13/10
1953/48.82
5/7
51 and above
1462/112.46
6/3
2939/49.81
9/15
2445/78.87
11/7
10 or below
Ponting Sangakkara100s / 50s Runs/ ave Runs/ ave
100s/ 50s
Staying through partnerships Dravid’s ability to spend long periods at the crease meant bowlers had to invariably work hard to get his wicket. On average, he played 123 balls per dismissal, which works out to 20.3 overs. Since the year of Dravid’s debut, the only batsman who has faced 10,000-plus deliveries and has a higher rate of balls per dismissal is Jacques Kallis, who averages 125.55 balls per dismissal. They’re the only two with a balls-per-dismissal figure of more than 120. Further down the table below, Tendulkar and Kumar Sangakkara have similar numbers: both have higher averages than Dravid, but their higher scoring rates also mean they don’t play as many deliveries per dismissal. Highest balls per dismissal in Tests since Jan 1996 Ba ts ma n
In nin gs No t o uts
Balls Strike Average faced rate
Balls pe r dismissal
Jacques Kallis
256
39
27,139
57.04
45.60
125.06
Rahul Dravid
286
32
31,258
52.31
42.51
123.06
Shivnarine Chanderpaul
221
33
21,365
48.79
42.93
113.64
Thilan Samaraweera
116
20
10,653
52.89
47.66
110.97
Steve Waug h
137
21
12,705
53.06
48.45
109.53
Gary Kirsten
143
14
13,841
47.19
43.98
107.29
256
25
23,781
56.22
54.61
102.95
Michael Huss ey
121
13
11,059
50.82
49.63
102.40
Kumar Sangakkara
181
12
17,236
55.39
54.31
101.99
Sachin Tendulkar
Qualification: 10,000 balls played
Dravid’s ability to spend long periods at the crease meant his contribution to the team was much more than just the runs he scored. His solidity at the top of the order allowed the other, more extravagant, strokeplayer s in the Indian team to express themselves fr eely, knowing that Dravid would hold his end up for long periods without losing co ncentration. The table below shows that when Dravid was at the crease, the team scored 32,039 runs (60 o f those were in the Test between Australia and the ICC World XI, so 31,979 runs were scored by the Indian team). Given that the entire Indian team scored 89,668 runs, it means 35.6% of the total runs that India made in the Tests in which Dravid played were scored with him at the crease. The corresponding
percentage for Tendulkar is 29.9, and 32.6 for Kallis. Dravid is also the only batsman to be involved in more than 700 partnerships; in fact, no other batsman has touched 650 so far. Every time Dravid walked out to bat, he was involved in, on an average, 2.58 partnerships. Among batsmen who have played at least 100 innings, only Shivnarine Chanderpaul has a higher partnerships-per-innings number (2.66). So while Dravid scored heaps of runs himself, his batting style also meant many more runs were being scored from the other end while he was around, all of which helped the team’s cause.
Partnership runs for batsmen with 10,000-plus Test runs Ba ts ma n
Pa r tn er s hip s
Partnership runs
100/50 stands
Batsman Percentage runs
Rahul Dravid
738
32,039
88/126
13,288
41.47
Sachin Tendulkar
646
30,278
85/121
15,470
51.09
Ricky Ponting
496
26,703
85/110
13,200
49.43
Jacques Kallis
581
26,349
65/119
12,379
46.98
Allan Border
617
24,500
63/104
11,174
45.61
Steve Waug h
590
23,457
64/87
10,927
46.58
Brian Lara
508
21,495
62/84
11,953
55.61
519
21,080
58/85
10,122
48.02
429
20,948
63/82
10,271
49.03
Sunil Gavas kar Mahela Jayawardene
Dravid has been involved in more century stands than any other batsman: he finished at 88, with Tendulkar and Ponting on 85 each. Dravid is also the only batsman to have ten or mor e century stands with four others. And with Tendulkar, Dravid scored more partnership runs and century stands than any other pair, including openers, did: 6920 runs in 143 partnerships at 50.51, with 20 century stands. (Gordon Greenidge and Desmond Haynes are next in terms of runs, with 6482, while in terms of century stands, the West Indian opening pair shares second place with Hayden and Ponting – bo th have 16 hundred par tnerships each.)
Batsmen involved in most 100-plus stands in Tests Batsman
Century stands
Partners with 10+ century sta nds
Rahul Dravid
88
Ricky Ponting Sachin Tendulkar Jacques Kallis Steve Waug h Allan Border Mahela Jayawardene Brian Lara Shivnarine Chanderpaul
85 85 65 64 63
Tendulkar (20), Laxman (12), Sehwag (10), Ganguly (10) Hayden (16), Langer (14) Dravid (20), Ganguly (12) d e Villiers (12) — —
63
Sangakkara (14), Samaraweera (10)
62
Sa rwan (12)
60
—
Sunil Gavas kar
58
Chauha n (11), Amarnath (10)
Vengsa rkar
(10),
M
Beyond the batsman And if all those achievements ar e not enough, Dravid was captain of the Indian Test team for 25 Tests, a period during which the team had an 8-6 win-loss record, and won series in the West Indies and
England. Among Indian captains who led in 20 or more Tests, only MS Dhoni and Sourav Ganguly have better win-loss ratios.
Indian captains with best win-loss ratio Captain
Tes ts
Win/Los s
Draw
W/L ratio
MS Dhoni
37
17/10
10
1.70
Sourav Ganguly
49
21/13
15
1.61
Rahul Dravid
25
8/6
11
1.33
Sunil Gavas kar
47
9/8
30
1.12
Mohammad Azharuddin
47
14/14
19
1.00
Qualification: at l east 2 0 Tests as captain
And on the field, he took a record 210 catches, mostly in the slips. That was another aspect of the game where his immense powers o f concentration stood him in g ood stead. There’s plenty to like about Dravid’s Test career. The one disappointing aspect, though, is his record against Australia and South Africa, arguably the two best bowling sides during his playing period. His poor final series in Australia meant his overall average against them dipped below 40 (38.67), while against South Africa he aver aged only 33.83. Thus, in 54 Tests against those two teams, he averaged 36.75, with only four hundreds; in 27 Tests in those two countries, he averaged 36.53, with only two centuries. He never scored another Test hundred in South Africa after that 148 in Johannesburg in 1996-97, while the 233 in Adelaide remained his only Test hundred in Australia. Those, though, are minor blips in a career that largely stayed at an exceptionally high level for mor e than 15 years.
Dravid in ODIs Unlike his Test career, which started with a bang, Dravid’s scores in his first five completed ODI innings were 3, 4, 3, 11 and 13. It was only in the tougher conditions of Toronto, in 1996, that his orthodoxy and tight technique were first recognised as a blessing in ODIs as well: in the five-match Friendship Cup against Pakistan, he notched up his fir st half-century and top-scor ed in two matches. That was followed by a few impressive innings, including his maiden century, against Pakistan, in a match overshadowed by Saeed Anwar’s record-breaking 194. However, ODIs were still largely a struggle for Dravid, and perhaps never was that better illustrated than by his 21-ball 1 against Bangladesh in a Coca-Cola Triangular Series match in May 1998. Till the end of that year, his ODI record was strictly modest: an average of under 32, at a strike rate of 63, in 65 games. In his first ODI of 1999, Dravid broke the shackles with an outstanding unbeaten run-a-ball 123 against New Zealand in Taupo, and that kickstarted a sustained run of excellence over the next seven years. It included a fantastic World Cup in 1999 – 461 runs at 65.85 – and another run-a-ball century against New Zealand later that year, 153 in Hyderabad, which remained his highest ODI score. The 2003 Wor ld Cup was another big success – 318 r uns at 63.60. Between 1999 and 2005, Dravid averaged almost 43 from 210 matches, scored ten of his 12 centuries, and won nine of his 14 Man-of-the-Match awards.
Rahul Dravid’s ODI career Strike
Perio d
rate
ODIs
Runs
Average
100s/50s
T ill Dec 1998
65
1709
31.64
63.48
1/12
Jan 1999 to Dec 2005
210
7134
42.97
71.97
10/53
Jan 2006 onwa rds
69
2046
35.27
76.34
1/18
Career
344
10,889
39.16
71.24
12/83
In the seven years from 1999 to 2005, Dravid was among the most successful ODI batsmen in the world, which says a lot about his ability to work on his game and adapt. Among batsmen with at least 4000 ODI runs during this period, only three – Damien Martyn, Kallis and Tendulkar – had a higher average, while Dravid’s strike rate of 72 was very acceptable too. Batsmen like Inzamam-ul-Haq, Mohammad Yousuf and Sourav Ganguly, who were generally rated as far more free-stroking, only had marginally higher scoring rates.
Top ODI batsmen between Jan 1999 and Dec 2005 Bats man
Strike rate
ODIs
Runs
Average
Damien Martyn
163
4411
46.43
78.18
5/30
Jacques Kallis
177
6348
45.66
70.69
10/48
Sachin Tendulkar
151
6181
45.44
85.07
17/28
Rahul Dravid
210
7134
42.97
71.97
10/53
Ricky Ponting
179
6443
42.66
80.48
13/37
180
5772
42.13
75.61
5/45
Mohammad Yous uf
194
6502
40.89
75.28
10/42
Sourav Ganguly
194
7185
40.82
76.00
17/41
Inzamam-ul-Haq
100s/50s
Qualification: 400 0 runs scored
Of the 344 ODIs that Dravid played in, India won 160, and his contributions in those games were pretty significant: 5729 runs at 50.69, which made him one of only 11 batsmen to score 5000 or more runs in wins at 50-plus averages. Thro ugh some of that perio d between 1999 and 2004, apart fr om scoring tons of r uns Dravid also kept wicket. He was competent enough at the job to do it 73 times, including at the 2003 World Cup. In those 73 games Dravid didn’t allow his batting to suffer, scoring 2300 runs at more than 44 per dismissal. Among wicketkeepers who have scored more than 2000 runs, only MS Dhoni has a higher average. Dravid’s debut as wicketkeeper was especially memorable: in the 1999 World Cup game against Sri Lanka, he smashed 145 off 129 balls and was in a 318-run stand for the second wicket with Ganguly, which at the time was the highest partnership for any wicket in ODIs. In fact, Dravid has been involved in both triple-century partnerships that have been recorded in ODI history: later in 1999, he shared a 331-run stand with Tendulkar ag ainst New Zealand, and in the pro cess also notched up his highest score.
Best batting averages of wicketkeepers in ODIs Player
ODIs
Runs
Average
Strike ra te
100s / 50s
AB de Villiers
37
2009
80.36
99.65
8/11
MS Dhoni
190
6235
49.09
87.50
7/40
Rahul Dravid
73
2300
44.23
72.60
4/14
Kumar Sangakkara
257
8647
39.84
76.99
9/63
Adam Gilchrist
282
9410
35.64
96.94
16/53
Andy Flowe
186
5845
34 58
73 71
4/46
138
Alec Stewart
4017
33.47
70.06
4/26
Qualification: 200 0 runs scored
Of all the batsmen he played alongside, Dravid had the most success with Tendulkar and Ganguly, putting together 11 century partnerships and scoring more than 4000 runs with each. That makes him one of only three players – Tendulkar and Ganguly being the others – to have scored more than 4000 partnership r uns with at least two batsmen. Dravid’s partnerships with these two were fruitful in Wor ld Cups too: he averaged 88 with Ganguly and almost 83 with Tendulkar. In fact, Dravid’s overall World Cup record was splendid, even though his last World Cup campaign ended in bitter disappointment in 2007. Among batsmen who scored at least 750 Wor ld Cup runs, o nly Viv Richards has a better averag e. *
Best World Cup batting averages Ba ts man
Strike rate
Matches
Runs
Average
Viv Richards
23
1013
63.31
85.05
3/5
Rahul Dravid
22
860
61.42
74.97
2/6
45
2278
56.95
88.98
6/15
Herschelle Gibbs
25
1067
56.15
87.38
2/8
Sourav Ganguly
21
1006
55.88
77.50
4/3
Martin Crowe
21
880
55.00
83.57
1/8
Sachin Tendulkar
100s/50s
*
Qualification: 750 runs scored
Dravid’s stint as ODI captain is remembered largely for India’s shocking early exit in 2007, but India’s overall ODI record under his leadership was extremely healthy. In 79 games they won 42 and lost 33, giving them a win-loss ratio of 1.27. Among captains who have led India at least 50 times in ODIs, only Dhoni has a better ratio.
Indian captains and their ODI records Captain
*
Strike rate
ODIs
W/L
Ratio
Ba t ave
MS Dhoni
106
59/37
1.59
52.92
82.55
Rahul Dravid
79
42/33
1.27
42.19
75.42
Mohammad Azharuddin
174
90/76
1.18
39.39
78.46
Kapil Dev
74
39/33
1.18
30.66
105.74
Sourav Ganguly
146
76/65
1.16
38.79
76.32
Sachin Tendulkar
73
23/43
0.53
37.75
83.49
*
Qualification: 50 matches played as captain
Like in Tests, though, the one blot on Dravid’s ODI career is his record against the best team of his era: in 39 innings against Australia, he had a highest score of 80, an average of 24.97 and a strike rate of 66.94. Those are disappointing numbers, especially given the number of matches he played against them. Of course, given Australia’s awesome bowling attack, plenty of other top ODI batsmen struggled too – Ganguly averaged 23.45, Anwar 23.55, and Sehwag 22.37. Against all the other teams, though, Dravid’s record was top-class, even in a format that was initially thought to be outside his comfort zone. S Rajesh is stats editor of ESPNcricinfo, where a version of this article was first published on March 9, 2012.
Test match record overall
Mat
Inns
Career averages NO Runs HS
164
286
32
13288
Ave
SR
100
50
270
52.31
42.51
36
63
Career summary Grouping ICC World XI India
Mat
Inns
NO
Runs
HS
Ave
SR
100
50
1 163
2 284
0 32
23 13265
23 270
11.50 52.63
31.08 42.53
0 36
0 63
v Australia v Bangladesh v England v New Zealand v Pakistan v South Africa v Sri Lanka v West Indies v Zimbabwe
33 7 21 15 15 21 20 23 9
62 10 37 28 26 40 32 38 13
6 2 5 2 3 3 1 7 3
2166 233 560 160 1950 217 1659 222 1236 270 1252 148 1508 177 1978 146 979 200*
38.67 70.00 60.93 63.80 53.73 33.83 48.64 63.80 97.90
39.33 59.44 41.35 45.22 45.24 34.86 46.47 40.54 49.41
2 3 7 6 5 2 3 5 3
13 1 8 6 3 5 9 13 5
in Australia in Bangladesh in England in India in New Zealand in Pakistan in South Africa in Sri Lanka in West Indies in Zimbabwe
16 7 13 70 7 6 11 12 17 5
32 10 23 120 14 9 22 21 28 7
4 2 3 11 2 2 1 1 5 1
1166 560 1376 5598 766 550 624 662 1511 475
233 160 217 222 190 270 148 107 146 118
41.64 70.00 68.80 51.35 63.83 78.57 29.71 33.10 65.69 79.16
39.57 59.44 44.66 42.38 43.69 51.06 37.63 40.61 38.40 46.11
1 3 6 15 2 3 1 1 3 1
6 1 4 27 5 0 2 4 11 3
home away
70 94
120 166
11 21
5598 7690
222 270
51.35 53.03
42.38 42.60
15 21
27 36
1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003
7 12 5 10 6 13 16 5
12 18 9 19 11 23 26 10
1 2 0 1 3 3 3 2
37.42 36.93 37.85 42.44 49.44 40.28 41.92 51.37
0 1 1 4 2 1 5 2
3 9 3 1 1 6 5 3
Mat
Inns
436 95 39.63 984 148 61.50 413 118 45.88 865 190 48.05 624 200* 78.00 935 180 46.75 1357 217 59.00 803 233 100.37 Career averages NO Runs HS Ave
SR
100
50
12 8 12 10 15 6 12 12 3
18 12 22 19 28 10 20 23 6
3 0 4 2 2 1 2 3 0
42.49 45.58 42.26 41.79 38.60 48.60 44.56 44.74 34 62
2 2 3 1 2 2 3 5 0
4 4 7 3 4 5 1 4 0
2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012
946 640 1095 606 805 747 771 1145 116
270 135 146 129 136 177 191 146* 47
63.06 53.33 60.83 35.64 30.96 83.00 42.83 57.25 19 33
Under captain M Azharuddin MS Dhoni R Dravid SC Ganguly A Kumble V Sehwag GC Smith SR Tendulkar
12 35 25 49 14 3 1 25
21 62 45 80 27 6 2 43
1 7 6 13 2 0 0 3
1162 2812 1736 4912 785 199 23 1659
190 191 146 270 111 83 23 148
58.10 51.12 44.51 73.31 31.40 33.16 11.50 41.47
42.98 45.28 41.95 45.52 37.38 35.15 31.08 35.46
4 11 4 14 1 0 0 2
6 8 10 22 5 2 0 10
is captain is not captain
25 139
45 241
6 26
1736 11552
146 270
44.51 53.73
41.95 42.59
4 32
10 53
1st team innings 164 2nd team innings 132
164 122
10 22
9105 4183
270 180
59.12 41.83
43.73 40.07
30 6
39 24
1st match innings 75 2nd match innings 89 3rd match innings 67 4th match innings 65
75 89 65 57
3 7 4 18
4121 4984 2608 1575
222 270 180 103*
57.23 60.78 42.75 40.38
44.89 42.81 40.49 39.39
15 15 5 1
15 24 15 9
won match lost match drawn match
92 98 96
14 5 13
5131 270 2778 146* 5379 222
65.78 29.87 64.80
47.57 35.08 42.84
15 4 17
23 12 28
72 38 24.00 735 146* 45.93 10524 270 52.88 957 146 53.16 308 144* 38.50 413 180 68.83 279 95 69.75
25.89 42.26 42.78 39.75 37.19 51.94 45.51
0 4 28 2 1 1 0
0 1 50 6 1 2 3
56 49 59
Batting position 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
3 14 134 16 11 6 4
3 20 219 21 11 8 4
0 4 20 3 3 2 0
ODI record Overall
Grouping Asia XI ICC World XI India
Mat
Runs
344
10889
Career averages HS Ave SR 153
39.16
71.24
Career summary HS Ave SR
100
50
4s
6s
12
83
950
42
100
50
4s
6s
Mat
Runs
1
75
75*
-
105.63
0
1
5
0
3
46
26
15.33
52.87
0
0
3
0
340
10768
153
39.15
71.18
12
82
942
42
v Australia v Bangladesh v Bermuda v England v ICC World XI v Ireland v Kenya v Namibia v Netherlands v New Zealand v Pakistan v Scotland v South Africa v Sri Lanka v UAE v West Indies v Zimbabwe
43
974
80
24.97
66.94
0
8
85
2
10
197
60
32.83
64.59
0
2
13
0
1
7
7*
-
350.00
0
0
0
1
30
1012
92*
38.92
77.48
0
11
103
5
1
75
75*
-
105.63
0
1
5
0
1
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
11
358
104*
71.60
74.58
1
1
33
1
1
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
1
17
17
17.00
44.73
0
0
0
0
31
1032
153
41.28
69.58
2
5
96
10
58
1899
107
36.51
67.17
2
14
157
1
1
10
10*
-
125.00
0
0
2
0
36
1309
84
39.66
66.54
0
14
116
4
46
1662
145
48.88
75.20
3
11
144
8
1
104
104
1
0
8
0
40
1348
109*
42.12
74.39
3
8
127
10
32
885
85
36.87
72.12
0
8
61
0
in Australia in Bangladesh in Canada in England in India in Ireland in Kenya in Malaysia in Netherlands in New Zealand in Pakistan in Scotland in Singapore in South Africa in Sri Lanka
22
666
84
33.30
67.13
0
7
53
0
9
295
60
42.14
66.44
0
2
23
0
18
415
90
27.66
59.20
0
2
27
3
32
1238
145
45.85
80.65
2
11
117
7
97
3406
153
43.11
78.53
6
24
317
16
4
112
74
37.33
73.68
0
1
10
0
8
238
68*
39.66
65.02
0
2
27
0
4
39
26
9.75
46.42
0
0
5
0
2
0
0
0.00
0.00
0
0
0
0
12
425
123*
38.63
63.33
1
2
36
3
11
503
99
50.30
73.00
0
6
51
0
1
10
10*
-
125.00
0
0
2
0
6
190
103*
38.00
73.92
1
0
18
2
30
930
84
44.28
64.89
0
10
70
4
42
1156
104
38.53
68.60
1
8
88
3
100
50
4s
6s
104.00 111.82
Mat
Runs
Career averages HS Ave SR
in UAE in West Indies in Zimbabwe
17
538
92
31.64
59.57
0
4
41
0
15
408
105
34.00
68.11
1
2
38
4
14
320
72*
32.00
74.94
0
2
27
0
home away
97
3406
153
43.11
78.53
6
24
317
16
120
4044
123*
41.26
69.44
2
37
349
16
neutral 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2009 2011
127
3439
145
34.04
67.11
4
22
284
10
20
475
90
27.94
69.54
0
3
32
1
31
951
107
39.62
63.69
1
8
77
2
14
283
64
21.76
54.84
0
1
16
0
43
1761
153
46.34
75.16
6
8
164
12
31
980
85
35.00
63.80
0
9
91
1
24
740
80
43.52
70.74
0
6
58
1
28
913
109*
48.05
76.65
1
7
70
2
23
623
62
41.53
64.49
0
4
50
4
31
1025
104
39.42
74.98
1
10
85
2
30
1092
104
47.47
74.64
2
9
100
2
27
919
105
35.34
73.22
1
8
112
3
31
823
92*
37.40
82.05
0
8
75
10
6
180
76
36.00
68.70
0
1
11
2
5
124
69
24.80
77.50
0
1
9
0
Under captain M Azharuddin MS Dhoni R Dravid SC Ganguly A Jadeja SM Pollock SR Tendulkar is captain is not captain is designated keeper is not keeper 1st match innings 2nd match innings day/night match day match
34
1206
145
40.20
74.39
4
6
103
4
17
355
76
23.66
70.71
0
2
25
3
79
2658
105
42.19
75.42
2
25
275
14
133
4229
109*
41.87
71.90
3
34
346
12
13
320
81
26.66
61.42
0
2
31
0
3
46
26
15.33
52.87
0
0
3
0
65
2075
153
38.42
65.91
3
14
167
9
79
2658
105
42.19
75.42
2
25
275
14
265
8231
153
38.28
69.99
10
58
675
28
73
2300
145
44.23
72.60
4
14
193
9
271
8589
153
38.00
70.88
8
69
757
33
168
6202
153
42.77
73.22
9
48
528
27
171
4687
109*
35.24
68.78
3
35
422
15
147
4870
123*
40.24
70.41
5
38
408
13
197
6019
153
38.33
71.92
7
45
542
29
100
50
4s
6s
Career averages HS Ave SR
Mat
Runs
won match lost match tied match no result
160
5729
153
50.69
75.27
8
47
506
26
165
4807
123*
31.01
67.24
4
33
408
15
2
42
23
21.00
55.26
0
0
5
0
17
311
82
38.87
69.41
0
3
31
1
Tournament World Cup Asia Cup Aus Tri Series (CB) ICC Champions Trophy
Mat
Runs
HS
Ave
SR
100
50
4s
6s
22
860
145
61.42
74.97
2
6
76
3
13
334
104
37.11
78.22
1
2
29
1
18
545
84
32.05
65.34
0
6
45
0
19
627
76
48.23
73.33
0
6
56
1
tournament finals tournament semi-finals
24
729
103*
34.71
68.13
1
3
59
4
4
128
58
42.66
66.32
0
1
12
0
tournament quarter-finals preliminary quarter-finals preliminary matches Batting position 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
2
57
48
28.50
58.16
0
0
5
0
1
68
68*
-
78.16
0
1
7
0
153
4555
145
37.33
69.07
5
38
390
11
Mat
Runs
HS
Ave
SR
100
50
4s
6s
8
191
85
27.28
60.63
0
1
16
1
13
595
105
45.76
70.91
1
6
64
3
109
4000
153
38.83
69.60
7
27
363
15
102
3301
109*
36.27
70.91
2
26
300
4
69
2459
104
43.91
73.60
2
22
181
15
13
306
51
51.00
95.03
0
1
25
3
3
26
16
26.00
59.09
0
0
1
1
1
11
11
11.00
52.38
0
0
0
0
Acknowledgements This book, like all anthologies, features a number of writers, but a book does not come to life without vital contributions fr om many people without bylines. Thanks are due to: Saurabh Chaturvedi, for getting excited by the idea. Rina Mehta, for being the punching bag. Priya Ramani, Wally Mason and Alex Lavelle, for their generosity. Vijeeta and Pushpa Dravid, for sharing their family albums. And Nishi Narayanan, for dealing with masses of copy.
