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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

At 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 of 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 gully 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 read out a tribute that had all the right words, 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 aren’t nice men in sport – in fact, Indian cricket was blessed that it
had so many at the same time – but rarely does sport allow its successful practitioners 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 broken. It’s not that I cultivated a friendship with him deliberately. It developed
organically 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 from the outside, reflect on it objectively, and see the
ironies 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 100 Test. I didn’t know what to expect, but Dravid
th

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 or 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 first 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 around him, he was
back facing the new ball late in the day, when England enforced 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 Balis 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 approach 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 greater
rate, 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 forecast has Dravid declining to Gavaskar’s statistical level, says something about
the height at which he currently 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 observed 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 replaced
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 relative decline in Tendulkar’s
performance 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 “great”. It is the fate of low-profile high performers to be taken
for granted.
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 record-breaking debut series, where he scored 774 runs in four 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 frustrating habit of getting 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 shot-making, 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 exaggerated 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, hissadhu-like
indifference to the sex appeal of shots 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 Kesavanis a writer based in New Delhi. A version of this article was first published in the print version of
Cricinfo Magazinein August 2006

Of the 210 catches Dravid took in Test matches, more 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 Florida 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 of 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, just 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 cricket 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 work hard, the skill to swallow disappointments and return to the fray, the
cussedness needed to keep at it and excel at it are all part 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-fashioned cricketer who gave breath 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 of.
Suresh Menonis the editor of theWisden Cricketers’AlmanackIndia
Dravid’s 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 before you can use it properly. 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 drop the word “great” quite liberally. It was certainly great to
watch, but was it really one of 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 Test. Because by then he
th

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,
or Viv Richards before them, greatness 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 careers are poignant reminders that uncommon gifts alone do
not guarantee greatness.
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 are 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 comprehensible 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 great 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 umpiring decisions and a fielding lapse, but as
was the case with the five hundreds that came before that innings, and a couple 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 progress for Indian cricket, and in many ways Dravid was the singular embodiment
of this progress. 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 more than the numbers.
He saved them from 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 are born to greatness. Rahul Dravid acquired it. In some ways that is the greater
achievement.
Sambit Balis 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.

[4]

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 fortunate in a sense that when he arrived in 1996, Tendulkar was already a
phenomenon. Like all batsmen of his time, Dravid had accepted that Tendulkar was the best
and all he could do was fight for second place. That helped him focus on his own game and
avoid looking at it in comparison 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 superb instinctive stroke against fast bowling, and it is
a stroke he had from the outset; a shot that bailed him out 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 throw 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 general approach of teams. A defensive batsman’s forte is his ability to
defend the good 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 of 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 freeze” 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 person that he is, the kind a school 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 middle-class values are, I believe, India’s greatest strength, and Dravid
is among the finest illustrations of that fact.
Former India batsmanSanjay Manjrekaris a cricket commentator and presenter on TV. A version of this article was
published inCricinfo Magazinein 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.

[5]

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 honesty and humility – which I believe are the first steps towards
greatness.
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 off-side 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 score big runs despite getting good 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 respect 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 open up his off-side play. That’s why he chose to not get
behind the line of the ball at all times, and also started to use his top hand a lot more.
An ardent follower of the Gavaskar school of batting, Dravid would, when he started out, go
back and across 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-and-back trigger movement worked 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 released 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 openerAakash Choprais the author ofOut of the Blue,an account of Rajasthan’s 2010-11 Ranji Trophy
victory. This article was first published on March 19, 2012 on ESPNcricinfo

Dravid opened the innings only 23 times in Tests, but he scored four centuries in those innings. Only six
Indian openers have scored more hundreds: Sunil Gavaskar, Virender Sehwag, Gautam Gambhir, Navjot
Sidhu, Wasim Jaffer and Vinoo Mankad.

[6]

A fascinating captain and the job he fell out of


love with
SIDHARTH MONGA

Rahul 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 state to do so. As a player, Dravid did just 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 he could have been. Having recently become a father when he
took over 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 follow-on, despite a 319-run lead against England at The Oval,
no push for 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 remains that March afternoon in the West Indies when India were knocked out in the
first round of 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 enjoying 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, you could see, he enjoyed. Small tricks on the field, big plans off
it. 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 openers be given a thorough examination before
stumps; it was a flat pitch, and India would need time to force a result.
When he got the reins full-time, he left a Dravid imprint on the team. Before his first Test as
full-time 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 for an India captain to stay apolitical.
Equally a 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. It was arguably the most tumultuous and divisive period in Indian cricket. It was also
the dirtiest time. In these cases, who is right and who is wrong is often inconsequential. Was
Chappell not right 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 room? The truth will never come out even if every
party involved 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 just 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 fitter cricketers who were not stagnating, but perhaps he couldn’t
control the personality 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 “we”. And he admitted things could have been done differently, that
perhaps personalities 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 administrators, the players, the performances, the fans, the media. One party manoeuvred
one half, the other took the remaining two quarters. The whole nation was divided. Caught
between all this was the captain, hoping desperately for results in the World 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 great 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 not as easy as being the best cricketer he could be.
Sidharth Mongais an assistant editor at ESPNcricinfo
Dravid scored 860 runs in World Cups at an average of 61.42. Among batsmen who scored at least 750
World Cup runs only Viv Richards has a better average (1013 runs at 63.31).

[7]

‘The best batting happens when you are batting


in the present’
INTERVIEW BY SAMBIT BAL

December 2003

Till 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 go out and play
more 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 good
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 crease.
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 forward now, and my front-foot driving is
more 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 just 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 more
runs are scored. I had to adjust my thought processes 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, from 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 your confidence to bat on them. The facilities in
Australia are very good, 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 pressure 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 are not alone out 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 lot 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 different.
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 from 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 lot comes with practice. I always try to work 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, energy, hands and eyes
are responding 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 through your mind when you benefit from a dropped catch?
You’re 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 state of your mind on the 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 course, we were a bit nervous, 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], Greg [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 Balis the editor of ESPNcricinfo. This interview was first published inWisden Asia Cricketmagazine

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 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.
Ed Smith,A gentleman champion of timeless steel
and dignity, page 60

[8]

The rock around whom the rest moved


JOHN WRIGHT

Let 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 right there. He asked me if I was sure, and since we were
both hungry, 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 everything 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 frame.
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 decision.
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 get him out.
It helped me hugely to have Rahul around. Sourav was great as captain – when I look 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 argue 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 grounded even in the circus of Indian cricket – but that’s fairly well known, so I’d like to
reveal 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 from his wonderful defensive
technique, but I am sure 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 could get him out.
I think Rahul always wanted to be – and turned out to be – one of the great batsmen in world
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 you don’t have some goals.
I have never seen a more 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 out some kink.
One of the things I found 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 work at a little bit
more 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 probably improved 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 going now. There is probably Alastair Cook, if you’re 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 worked 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.

[9]
A gentleman champion of timeless steel and
dignity
ED SMITH

When 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 courteous, he is also constant: always the same, whatever the
circumstances 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
properly.
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 getting
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 god-given 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
co-existed with fierce competitiveness and national pride.
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
golden age. But sometimes I cannot avoid the sense that a certain type of sportsman 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 of batsmen whose instincts and temperament were perfectly 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 cricket match in which he played.
Ed Smithis a former England, Middlesex and Kent player and the author, most recently, ofLuck – 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.
[ 10 ]

The eternal student


GREG CHAPPELL

Men don’t say these things, but I have a genuine affection for 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 give 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 rash 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 reader, who reads 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 arguments 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 opportunities 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 look to make the “danger zone”
(the area a metre or so in front of a good stride forward) as small as possible by scoring from
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 every 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 morning so that he could practise the
mindset that we had discussed.
That he went out and scored a fluent 53 (run out) that day was more 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 took courage. It was that sort of courage 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 very few times when chasing a target in ODIs. This was because they had
no plan other than to attack, which could be spectacularly successful or 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 overs.
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 different and he could have gone on to become the most
successful Indian captain ever.
Former Australia batsmanGreg Chappellwas India’s coach for much of Rahul Dravid’s tenure as captain

In an ODI against South Africa in Kochi in 2000, Dravid outbowled Anil Kumble, taking 2 for 43 against
Kumble’s 0 for 48.

[ 11 ]

The master will see you now (and always)


SURESH RAINA

When 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 looked 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 Rahulbhaitold 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 Rahulbhaialways made it a point to listen to us and
gave 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 Rahulbhaileading 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 Rahulbhaivery 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
World Cup I was dropped and then suffered a knee injury. I was out of the Indian team for
nearly 15 months. I was young, without any support and mentoring, 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. Rahulbhaitold me not to hurry back. He suggested that I spend time with my
family and not worry 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 Tournament 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, Rahulbhainever 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-foot play was very good, so the only thing I needed to
continue doing was to stay positive.
As a player Rahulbhaiwas 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
cricketer’s life. If you looked 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 Lord’s in the 2011 one-day series. It was a rain-affected match, which we lost
from a winning position. Rahulbhaitold 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!
Rahulbhaiwas 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 about 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 Rahulbhai. 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 from 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 batsmanSuresh Rainaplayed 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 dismissals in 38 matches.

[ 12 ]
‘I can’t recall beating him more than one ball in
a row’
JASON GILLESPIE

The 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 periods of
time. He won the battles more often.
Good bowlers are able to put pressure on a batsman, no matter how good, 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 incredibly disciplined against him
in line and length 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 important asset to have for a top-
order 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 scored 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 not.
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 comfortably, and then suddenly he played a hook shot. It was a sort of top
edge – it went for a six and he got to his first 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 support to Laxman. We just could not dislodge 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 circumspect 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 difference between a very good player and a great player: the ability to score
when you get the chance to score. And that is one of the reasons he averaged 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 bowlerJason Gillespiedismissed 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).

[ 13 ]

His team, his time


RAHUL BHATTACHARYA

“Ido 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.”
This was toWisdenAsia Cricketin 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
series-levelling 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 extraordinary
turnaround in the one-day game. 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 took a 3am flight to
Bangalore.
At 5.30am he was home and delighted 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
trophy-unveiling 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 journalist’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.
“Formally 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 food, bed for a bit. Then a captain’s meeting with the match
officials. Now this.”
“This” beingCricinfo Magazine’sfirst 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 realise 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
ground, 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’sThe 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 of 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
promised to be just the start. By Ahmedabad the poor chap was in hospital. This now is Dravid’s
world.
“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 thepaceof 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
ofteamI’d like to have.” Which is?
“Which is, obviously, tough, competitive – a team that is looking toimproveand 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 not 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 on the mend. L Balaji is crocked and
somewhat forgotten.

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 remain divided. It is possible that some may have caused Dravid unease,
but it is clear that he stands steadfast by a philosophy of team ethic, and that stagnation has
hurt as much as defeat. He is after self-starters, those who “can look 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 over in conversation 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
tomotivateanyone. 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 sacrifices 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 non-
negotiable 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, from 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 very proud cricketer. And it’s not hard work 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-on-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 friction 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 disagree. At the end of the day, he’s done a
really good 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 grow from those experiences, whether it is from different kinds of drills 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 important.
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 obvious intelligence, that allows him to bring 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 logic 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 decision-making.
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, theirthinkingis 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 different positions has made me think about my
cricket 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 of 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
self-understanding. 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 right environment and evolved a sense of team in a lot 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 Bhattacharyais the author of the cricket tour bookPundits from Pakistan. He was contributing editor atCricinfo
Magazinewhen 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
Australia’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

Until 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 out with him a wand instead of a bat. It was a desperate move from a desperate
side, and one rich 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 loose shot in Kolkata’s humidity of
over 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 straight 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
inJohn 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 fight the
biggest 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 Kasprowicz bowled 14 straight dots at him.
When the umpire erroneously ruled a leg-bye as a single off the 15 Kasprowicz delivery Dravid
th

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 close to edging it. Now McGrath started his famous 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 first 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 , drinks arrived. The first hour had
th

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 got 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 was50 off 127, but
that came with its fair share of trouble too… from Ricky Ponting, who had been having a horror
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 going to get out today. Not even run out.
Now Dravid pulled Ponting to midwicket. Michael Slater – who had been all over 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 more inches during the effort.
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
leg-bye, 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 cramps 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 work.
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 for 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
room, 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 joint-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 affirmation he needed to know he belonged. And how he
belonged.
Dravid’s hundred included13 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 conquered 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 first
double by an Indian at the Eden Gardens. He made sure it was announced during the live

coverage on TV. Soon the big board at the ground would announce 1,000 for each of

Laxman’s runs until his 236 , then the highest Test score by an Indian, and
th 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 arrive.
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 score a crazy,
match-winning double-century. 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 from 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 through 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 soon. With a tablet and a saline drink. It was cramps, then, which
don’t qualify you to get a runner. 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 relive 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 break, Hemang Badani and
Sarandeep Singh tied them on the batsmen’s necks. It was not difficult to draw boxing parallels.
The bell rang again.

Laxman soon reached 250. That was 2,64,000 worth. A tenth of what they get from 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 world 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 reach 150. He was not angry 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 smoothly 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 averages 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 short. 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 Mongais 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 times 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, third Test, Leeds, 2002

Matthew Hoggard 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 north 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 nearly 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 before 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-
or-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 fast-bowling 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 comfortable 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, just 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 good a batsman you are, 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 going to give my wicket away easily. It was old-fashioned 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 poor 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-friendly
pitches. They have also got 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 Sourav 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 victories overseas.
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
purity and defiance. “Rahul batted like god,” his captain, Sourav Ganguly, said.
233 and 72*v Australia, second Test, Adelaide, 2003

Dusk 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 room, amidst the detritus of empty
Gatorade 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 lingering, 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 manyemotions 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, inWisden Asia Cricketmagazine, 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, readingTo 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’sThe Amateursstudies in
detail the quest of American rowers for Olympic selection, dissecting their pain, their rage, the
obsession of their journey. Down the phone from 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 imaginary 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 of the moment that he is attuned to. That this is Jason Gillespie running 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, refocus, reminding myself of what I wanted to achieve. My goal was to not 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 of more shots than some believe; he is merely
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 courage.” 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 worked extremely hard to make best use of his gifts.”
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 more fluent friend. You don’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 effort for a blocker, huh?”
No, not bad at all.
Rohit Brijnathcovered the 2003 Adelaide Test for the MelbourneAge, for whom he worked at the time and where this
article was first published. He is now a senior correspondent with theStraits Timesin Singapore.

Dravid scored more Test runs and centuries at Eden Gardens than at any other 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

Aworld 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
journalist 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 tomorrow.
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 groove. The good’uns still make it count; and maestros, of course.
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. Ill-advisedly 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 from Shoaib, no response from 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 inspiration; 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 lose
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 flurry 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 out.
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 score.
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 before tea, he added seven more 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 Test hundred. He now had a century in and
th

against every country barring Bangladesh, an anomaly he would rectify before the year was
out. On only one of these 17 occasions 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 coarse 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 greeted by a leg gully, a forward short leg, many slips,
and crimson flames blowing out of Shoaib’s nose. On the first delivery to the Indian captain,
Shoaib tumbled and fell in his follow-through 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 in the
th

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 theyhadachieved 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 from 55 to a “mere” 47, and he did not manage a single fifty in those
14 innings. In the 41 Tests and 41 months between then and now, Dravid averaged 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,fiveof 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 agulab 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 scoredhundredsin four successive Test innings. How much can
you keep biting off? How much can you keep chewing?
Rahul Bhattacharyais a writer based in Delhi. He covered India’s 2003-04 tour of Pakistan forWisden Asia
Cricketmagazine, and later wrote a book about it:Pundits from Pakistan

Three of the four wickets Dravid took bowling in ODIs were of South Africans – Shaun Pollock, Gary
Kirsten and Lance Klusener. The only other batsman he dismissed 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
years. 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, fourth Test, Kingston, 2006

It 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 openers 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 prods. 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 long-term appointment.
The Caribbean tour had begun on a high note: a Dravid hundred won the first ODI in Kingston –
India’s 17 successful chase on the trot. But that was the acme: India lost the series 1-4 and the
th

pressure 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 legspin; 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 first 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 first 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 Barbados 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.
From 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. There 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 ramrod 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 once.
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 for not getting the bat down in 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.
Siddhartha Vaidyanathanis a journalist based in New York. He covered India’s 2006 tour of West Indies for
ESPNcricinfo

Dravid was never dismissed for a first-ball duck in Tests. He was, though, run out for 0 without facing a
ball once: 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, second Test, Nottingham, 2011

The 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 descriptions were irrelevant. In terms of batsmanship, the first two
days have both been, quite simply, Dravid 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 passages of play when the bowling has been unrelenting and during
spells when the ball has darted, jagged, leapt and thrown flying kisses at the bat’s edge, Dravid
has been instinct and calculation in perfect sync.
With this 34 century, he has now drawn level with Sunil Gavaskar and Brian Lara, to go with his
th

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.”
On this tour of England, it is a shoulder his team has leaned heavily upon. Of all the India
batsmen, he has adjusted the quickest in England, looked the most composed, and scored the
most heavily. India still find themselves gasping because he has had very little company.
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 him for going 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 was the purpose of what he had to do: bat one ball at a 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 at a juicy sighter.
Laxman melted the conditions – driving, pulling and cutting savagely to score his second half-
century 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. Dravid’s game is based on technical classicism and 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 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 editorSharda Ugracovered 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.

[ 20 ]

‘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 progression.
How did you figure out which was the best spot for you 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 think are the essentials of a good 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 are 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 direction.
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 more, 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 slightly 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 boring and repetitive, but if you can just vary it with
different balls, with different angles, it could be more fun. It is all about fun.
Do you watch the bat, the batsman or the 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 relaxed 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 difference. With the fast bowlers the ball comes at you a lot quicker but you are
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 drops 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 difference, and
recognise 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 or 112 th th

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 going to do each ball. That keeps you in that space to do that.
You spoke of switching on. What about switching off 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 recognised 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 good 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 you 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 reacted quickly to hold 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 good.
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 learn 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 Gollapudiis 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 145

[ 21 ]

Dignity, grace, conscience


ROHIT BRIJNATH

At 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 crowd 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
cricket, 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 rarely find.
My mother is not given at all to cricket watching, yet she sent me an email after his retirement
press conference 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 “practising 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 joked 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 just think, bloody hell. Struggle, in all its forms, 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 World 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 autobiography.
“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 Brijnathis a senior correspondent at theStraits Timesin Singapore and the co-author of the autobiography of
Abhinav Bindra. This piece was first published inMint Loungeon March 10, 2012
[ 22 ]

A sportsman of model decorum


GIDEON HAIGH

Rahul Dravid is a thinking cricketer. But one person I learned that he does not spend a lot of
time 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 Dravid 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 upbringing, a good education, a loving marriage and… well, yes, he’d
made more than 24,000 international runs with 48 hundreds, but what of it?
Dravid had recently read Andre Agassi’s autobiography,Open. Nowthatwas a story. Drugs, girls,
money, triumph, disaster. By comparison, Dravid said seriously, 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 at the crease”.
The same was true of Dravid. He batted as a river runs, at an immemorial pace. You could tune
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 Dravid in 2011-12, and he is too perceptive not to have sensed it, despite his
valiant struggles. He was, as ever, a model guest, his Bradman Oration being quite possibly the
season’s 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. Even 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 wondered what he had done wrong; on the contrary, Ponting wanted to tell him what
he was doing right. Dravid was having a poor series; Ponting urged him to hang in there. “I
know you’re not making runs, and I know there’s probably a bit of pressure on you at the
moment,” Ponting told Dravid. “But let me tell you: every time you come in, I tell the guys that
you look like you’re going 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 year of his Test career.
Just over a week after our dinner, Ponting dived headlong for his crease at the SCG, just beating
a throw and achieving his first Test century in nearly two years. It was noticeable that while
most 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 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 cricket might lie ahead of him. And that would be a story worth telling.
Gideon Haighis an author and cricket historian, whose writing has been featured, among other places, on
ESPNcricinfo, in theGuardian,and theAustralian(where this piece was first published)

[ 23 ]

The reason I got married


JARROD 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 world 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. I can’t write about him from a distanced and analytical perspective. He
once shook my hand and it’s because of him I’m now married.
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 it. I wouldn’t let him be forgotten.
Dravid averaged 15.50 that series.
Four years later he came back to Australia as that guy who had stood at the other end while
VVS Laxman defeated Australia. Australians still didn’t really rate Dravid, if they thought 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 girlfriend even a little bit. But finally I was justified as he strode to the
crease. I told her that she could say she saw Rahul Dravid bat in front of a crowd 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 know what the other eats for breakfast and what Adam
Sandler film 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 from cricket’s ultimate
gentleman. It was brilliant. 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 more 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 rashness.
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 your side.
The second handshake came after the interview. It was completely different from the first –
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 married.
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 dog, 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 before 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 very existence. And for that, and his forward defence, I say,
thank you, Rahul.
Jarrod Kimberis 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 name

[ 24 ]

The money moment


SAMIR CHOPRA

In 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 obvious
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 about my background, 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
one-day 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 present in my throat, as I felt a slight chill run 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 great cricketer.
Samir Chopralives 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

[ 25 ]

Start as you mean to go on


FAZAL KHALEEL

Ifirst 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 four.
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 come down straight, the ball would travel at an angle. Rahul
never forgot 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 room-mate, Rahul was difficult as well as easy to share with. He wanted a zen-like
atmosphere in the room – everything 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
ofJalneti. 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-ur-Rehman, 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 good 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 of 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 onto 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
room-mate, 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 or Rahul Dravid the
cricketer.
Fazal Khaleel, a former Karnataka first-class cricketer who played age-group cricket and Ranji Trophy with Rahul
Dravid, spoke to ESPNcricinfo assistant editor Nagraj Gollapudi

Grassy wicket? No problem. Baby Rahul with his parents

An early start: Dravid wields a bat nearly as big as himself

In his India Under-19 days


The elaborate forward defence, bat safely behind pad,
on show in a Ranji Trophy match against Tamil Nadu in 1991

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 1996: Dravid announced his arrival in Test cricket with 95 at 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 began the tournament with a 129-ball 145 in Taunton, and finished
it as the highest run-getter

In Kent colours, 2000: Dravid said his six-month stint with the county helped him better understand his game and himself
The duet: some of Dravid’s finest efforts came with VVS Laxman at the other end – most famously his 180 in Kolkata in 2001
In 2002 he mastered the swing and seam of Headingley, making a teeth-gritted 148 to set the 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 had left off in 1999, 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 2004, was his fourth double-hundred in 20 months. India won the Test by an innings,
and the series 2-1

Dravid won the first ICC awards for Player of the Year and Test Player of the Year, in September 2004, for over 2000 runs across
both formats
Physio’s delight: Dravid rarely flunked the dreaded skin-folds test, and 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 series in the West Indies 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 ended on a high, with a win in the Pataudi Trophy – India’s first series victory in England since 1986

On his third trip to Australia, in 2007-08, Dravid broke out of a run of poor form to score a crucial 93 in India’s famous win in
Perth
In 2008, he became the sixth batsman to have scored 10,000 Test runs. Sunil Gavaskar and Sachin Tendulkar are the only other
Indians to have gone past the milestone

Long one of India’s best specialist slip catchers, in December 2010, Dravid broke the world record, taking his 200th catch in Tests
If it’s June, it must be Jamaica: another win in Kingston for India, thanks largely to Dravid’s second-innings 112
Fifteen years after his debut at Lord’s, Dravid returned to England for one of his finest series, with three Test hundreds and an
average of 76
Old-school Test batsman or not, Dravid didn’t fare too badly in the IPL. In 2012 he captained Rajasthan Royals in the
tournament.

[ 26 ]

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 16-year 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 very special for us for more 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 theirbaba’sname 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 married 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 people 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
world was as important 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 cricketing 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 some reporters
who had come to talk to me. I didn’t speak to them, of course, but I could tell people were
happy. I fully understood 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 of 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 cricket, 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 other 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 gram, 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 priority. 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, before he could get 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 series.
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 Lord’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
compartmentalise 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 “work”. Other than dropped 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 go at that time, and a lot of my
answers 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 given 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 learning to be unselfish.” That said, he found a way to work 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 burned 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

[ 27 ]

‘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 your 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 tough, and you want to try to go there
and make a difference.
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 comfortable doing it then. Obviously after England I felt I was in good form and that I
needed to go to Australia, and I felt that it was going to be a tough tour and that it wouldn’t be
right 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 first-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 the IPL?

In some ways it’s like a weaning-off period. Playing cricket has been such a big part of my life,
so to just 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 yourself 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 get older these things do come in, and that’s why I
said that England for 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 college, 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 some ways controlled for you. You have no control 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 that 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 certain 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 retired 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 of 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 conscious effort to try and raise the bar of 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 responsibility 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 effort 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 you 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 more 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 pressure, 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 for 6 and then they got
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 matter whether you were out caught, lbw, stumped, bowled, whatever?
I don’t like getting out, period. How it happens is almost irrelevant. 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 worry about it.
But those are challenges you face all your life. I think that is what differentiates 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 out
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 problem-solver, a solution-finder. I’d like to believe that if I
had continued, I would hopefully have worked on this area [getting bowled] and got 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 combination 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 role, 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 good record with Veeru, Sachin, Laxman, because we’ve
played together 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 conversation – he brings that side out of you.
What do you talk 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 are 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 just 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 sort of focuses you on 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, you can’t.
But you did take to meditation itself as a tool 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 great way to relax 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 through that, especially when I was a youngster.
What kind of routines 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 done what I needed to do. Mentally again, I’d done
the preparation, 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 sort 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 biggest 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 of 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 off 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 important. 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 out a tough period and
grind out a tough period 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 of 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 thorough 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 cope with that?

I did belong to another generation. When I grew up playing cricket, it was all about playing Test
cricket. It was all about being a great Test player. In those days the teams were picked for 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 one-dayers. 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 exploded. I had to adapt and I had to learn 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 World Cup helped one-day cricket take off in a lot of ways. In
India and across the world.
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. In terms of shot-making and stroke-making ability, it did help my
Test game.
Did you ever worry about being left out in this changing 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 little time. I had to practise it a little more, and I went
through some ups and downs. I didn’t expect to be dropped at that stage. It was disappointing.
It takes time to learn and grow 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 look back on it – it doesn’t make
any difference now – when you look back at it 15 years later, 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 situations.
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 from there on 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 just a reflection of the game, professionalism in the
game.
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 actually be imitated?

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
language. In your experience, how much did that count in a competitor?

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 what works for them. Fair enough, I’m not saying that that’s
wrong.
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 aggressive.
Sometimes the toughest bowlers, I found, were always the guys who gave away nothing, in
terms of 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 aggression on the way people perform.
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 were going to have the skill and the fitness and the ability to
be aggressive.
And that was 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. It becomes about them, not about what the team is trying to
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 than some of the other teams did.
One of the things is that because we had so much practice, maybe we read some of these guys
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.
What do you make of the general notion that struggling against fast bowling is worse than
struggling against 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 considered weaker. Also, I think subcontinent tours in the old days were
not considered the No. 1 tours – people didn’t necessarily value their tours to the subcontinent
as much as they valued tours to England, Australia or South Africa. That has changed now, and
it’s pretty obvious that with the kind of audience and support that cricket generates in this part
of the world, a tour to this part of the world is extremely important now.
Honestly, if you want to be a good batsman you have to prove yourself in all conditions. To say
that it is okay to do badly in the subcontinent, to do badly against spin, is not acceptable
anymore. It’s slowly changing. When I look at the media in England, Australia, South Africa, in
the past sometimes they would almost have a casual attitude to performances on subcontinent
tours. They are also putting a lot more focus and emphasis on it now. When some of their
players don’t do well on the subcontinental tours, they get criticised and it gets pointed out and
questioned, which is a good 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 forward 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
good job 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 good job that I got too caught up in it. I got too tense, too anxious or too
keen about it in some ways.
Do you think that captains can actually lose teams, and that at one 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 results but
results are incredibly important. And I think, especially as we’ve seen in India, results in big
tournaments.
Why did you stand down from the captaincy after the England tour 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 non-stop 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 to the impact of T20 cricket on 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 money 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 part.
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 of 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 generation, which is already happening slowly, and will continue to do so over 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 or how successful a career he is going 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 that 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 allrounders or 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
own 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 not 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 Ugrais a senior editor at ESPNcricinfo, where this interview was first published on March 29, 2012

[ 28 ]

‘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.

Thank you for inviting me to deliver the Bradman Oration. The respect and the regard that
came with the invitation to speak tonight 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, North 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 before lunch at Lord’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 first India-Australia
series 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 cricket
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 good story.
My own link with Bradman was much like that of most other Indians – through history books,
some old video footage and his wise words. About leaving the game better than you found 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 great 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
generation play a series in Australia. I remember the excitement that went through 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 courage 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 series that followed two days after Bradman’s death later went on to become what many
believe was one of the greatest in cricket. It is a series, I’d like to believe, he would have
enjoyed following. 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 contests, sometimes acrimonious, 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 role with Chennai, to mention a few, are greatly
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 anymore. In fact, looking 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
country.
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 one-dimensional, often clichéd, image, relentlessly repeated, is not what
Indian cricket is really 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 north 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
million-dollar 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 – transformed 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 security when we go around the country as a
group. It is also why we make it a point to always try to conduct ourselves with composure 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 ground 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, fortresses and tourism, 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 cricket 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 practice 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 subordinates, then the urban elite, is now played by all of India. Cricket, as
my two U-19 team-mates proved, is India’s most widely spoken language. Even Indian cinema
has its regional 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 minority.
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 given us everything,” they were told, “all of us
have won”. Cricket in India now stands not just for sport 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 more talented than those sitting here, 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 average lives.
As Indian cricketers, our sport has given us the chance to do something worthwhile with our
lives. How many people could 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 grounds 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-degree 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 every game and yet the stands did not fill up. Five days after a 5-0
victory 95,000 turned up to watch India’s first Formula 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 crowds.
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 vigilant.
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 over, 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
granted. Disrespecting fans is disrespecting the game. The fans have stood by our 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 just 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 monitored and
regulated 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 scrutinised, 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 sport that is professional 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 gold 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 more than three decades now. T20 has come
upon us and it is the format 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 get as
many as we can in, to create a Test match environment that the players and the fans feed off.
Anything but the sight of Tests played on empty grounds. 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 cricket ball was not an
issue.
Similarly a Test championship, with every team and player driving themselves to be winners of
a sought-after title, seems like it would have a context to every 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 Recreation 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 -century life, through
st

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 one 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 agree 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 world.
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 cricket. 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 formats is
important:
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 games, 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 remembered for being the generation 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.
[ 29 ]

The man they couldn’t move


S RAJESH

The 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 run-getter, 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
seventh-highest 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 pretty well. He was
among the runs 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 more than 52 in his last 33
Tests.
Rahul Dravid’s Test career

Period Tests Runs Average 100s/50s Home ave Away ave


Till Mar 31, 2002 55 4329 50.92 9/24 48.91 53.20
Apr 2002-Jul 2006 49 4720 68.40 14/22 55.71 77.07
Aug 2006-Dec 2008 27 1460 31.06 3/7 31.60 30.66
Jan 2009 onwards 33 2779 52.43 10/10 75.31 42.54
Career 164 13,288 52.31 36/63 51.35 53.03

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 of 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 Runs Average 100s/50s Drawn Runs Average 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 Gavaskar 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 Bangladesh 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
Batsman Innings Runs Average 100s/50s
Rahul Dravid 219 10, 524 52.88 28/50
Ricky Ponting 196 9904 56.27 32/43
Kumar Sangakkara 160 8716 58.10 27/36
Don Bradman 56 5078 103.63 20/10
Richie Richardson 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 first wicket fell for 15, while
the 217 that followed in the next Test, at The Oval, was scored after the first 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
Point of entry Innings Runs Average 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 score 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 Bradman-Runs/ ave 100s/ Ponting-Runs/ ave 100s/ 50s Sangakkara-Runs/ ave 100s/
50s 50s
10 or below 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
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*
Batsman Innings Not Balls Average Strike rate Balls
outs
faced per 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 Waugh 137 21 12,705 53.06 48.45 109.53
Gary Kirsten 143 14 13,841 47.19 43.98 107.29
Sachin Tendulkar 256 25 23,781 56.22 54.61 102.95
Michael Hussey 121 13 11,059 50.82 49.63 102.40
Kumar Sangakkara 181 12 17,236 55.39 54.31 101.99

*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, strokeplayers in the Indian team to express themselves freely, knowing that
Dravid would hold his end up for long periods without losing concentration.
The table below shows that when Dravid was at the crease, the team scored 32,039 runs (60 of
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
Batsman Partnerships Partnership 100/50 Batsman Percentage
runs stands 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 Waugh 590 23,457 64/87 10,927 46.58
Brian Lara 508 21,495 62/84 11,953 55.61
Sunil Gavaskar 519 21,080 58/85 10,122 48.02
Mahela Jayawardene 429 20,948 63/82 10,271 49.03
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 more
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 – both have 16 hundred partnerships each.)
Batsmen involved in most 100-plus stands in Tests
Batsman Century stands Partners with 10+ century stands
Rahul Dravid 88 Tendulkar (20), Laxman (12), Sehwag (10), Ganguly (10)
Ricky Ponting 85 Hayden (16), Langer (14)
Sachin Tendulkar 85 Dravid (20), Ganguly (12)
Jacques Kallis 65 de Villiers (12)
Steve Waugh 64 —
Allan Border 63 —
Mahela Jayawardene 63 Sangakkara (14), Samaraweera (10)
Brian Lara 62 Sarwan (12)
Shivnarine Chanderpaul 60 —
Sunil Gavaskar 58 Chauhan (11), Vengsarkar (10), M Amarnath (10)

Beyond the batsman

And if all those achievements are 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 Tests Win/Loss 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 Gavaskar 47 9/8 30 1.12
Mohammad Azharuddin 47 14/14 19 1.00

*Qualification: at least 20 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 of concentration stood him in good 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 averaged 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 more 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 first half-century and top-scored 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 World Cup was another big success – 318 runs 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
Period ODIs Runs Average Strike rate 100s/50s
Till 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 onwards 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*

Batsman ODIs Runs Average Strike rate 100s/50s


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
Inzamam-ul-Haq 180 5772 42.13 75.61 5/45
Mohammad Yousuf 194 6502 40.89 75.28 10/42
Sourav Ganguly 194 7185 40.82 76.00 17/41

*Qualification: 4000 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.
Through some of that period between 1999 and 2004, apart from scoring tons of runs 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
against New Zealand, and in the process also notched up his highest score.
Best batting averages of wicketkeepers in ODIs*

Player ODIs Runs Average Strike rate 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 Flower 186 5845 34.58 73.71 4/46
Alec Stewart 138 4017 33.47 70.06 4/26

*Qualification: 2000 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 runs with at least two batsmen.
Dravid’s partnerships with these two were fruitful in World 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 World Cup runs, only Viv Richards has a better average.
Best World Cup batting averages*

Batsman Matches Runs Average Strike rate 100s/50s


Viv Richards 23 1013 63.31 85.05 3/5
Rahul Dravid 22 860 61.42 74.97 2/6
Sachin Tendulkar 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

*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 ODIs W/L Ratio Bat ave Strike rate


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 Rajeshis stats editor of ESPNcricinfo, where a version of this article was first published on March 9, 2012.

Test match record


Career averages
Mat Inns NO Runs HS Ave SR 100 50

overall 164 286 32 13288 270 52.31 42.51 36 63

Career summary
Grouping Mat Inns NO Runs HS Ave SR 100 50
ICC World XI 1 2 0 23 23 11.50 31.08 0 0
India 163 284 32 13265 270 52.63 42.53 36 63

v Australia 33 62 6 2166 233 38.67 39.33 2 13


v Bangladesh 7 10 2 560 160 70.00 59.44 3 1
v England 21 37 5 1950 217 60.93 41.35 7 8
v New Zealand 15 28 2 1659 222 63.80 45.22 6 6
v Pakistan 15 26 3 1236 270 53.73 45.24 5 3
v South Africa 21 40 3 1252 148 33.83 34.86 2 5
v Sri Lanka 20 32 1 1508 177 48.64 46.47 3 9
v West Indies 23 38 7 1978 146 63.80 40.54 5 13
v Zimbabwe 9 13 3 979 200* 97.90 49.41 3 5

in Australia 16 32 4 1166 233 41.64 39.57 1 6


in Bangladesh 7 10 2 560 160 70.00 59.44 3 1
in England 13 23 3 1376 217 68.80 44.66 6 4
in India 70 120 11 5598 222 51.35 42.38 15 27
in New Zealand 7 14 2 766 190 63.83 43.69 2 5
in Pakistan 6 9 2 550 270 78.57 51.06 3 0
in South Africa 11 22 1 624 148 29.71 37.63 1 2
in Sri Lanka 12 21 1 662 107 33.10 40.61 1 4
in West Indies 17 28 5 1511 146 65.69 38.40 3 11
in Zimbabwe 5 7 1 475 118 79.16 46.11 1 3

home 70 120 11 5598 222 51.35 42.38 15 27


away 94 166 21 7690 270 53.03 42.60 21 36

1996 7 12 1 436 95 39.63 37.42 0 3


1997 12 18 2 984 148 61.50 36.93 1 9
1998 5 9 0 413 118 45.88 37.85 1 3
1999 10 19 1 865 190 48.05 42.44 4 1
2000 6 11 3 624 200* 78.00 49.44 2 1
2001 13 23 3 935 180 46.75 40.28 1 6
2002 16 26 3 1357 217 59.00 41.92 5 5
2003 5 10 2 803 233 100.37 51.37 2 3
Career averages
Mat Inns NO Runs HS Ave SR 100 50

2004 12 18 3 946 270 63.06 42.49 2 4


2005 8 12 0 640 135 53.33 45.58 2 4
2006 12 22 4 1095 146 60.83 42.26 3 7
2007 10 19 2 606 129 35.64 41.79 1 3
2008 15 28 2 805 136 30.96 38.60 2 4
2009 6 10 1 747 177 83.00 48.60 2 5
2010 12 20 2 771 191 42.83 44.56 3 1
2011 12 23 3 1145 146* 57.25 44.74 5 4
2012 3 6 0 116 47 19.33 34.62 0 0

Under captain
M Azharuddin 12 21 1 1162 190 58.10 42.98 4 6
MS Dhoni 35 62 7 2812 191 51.12 45.28 11 8
R Dravid 25 45 6 1736 146 44.51 41.95 4 10
SC Ganguly 49 80 13 4912 270 73.31 45.52 14 22
A Kumble 14 27 2 785 111 31.40 37.38 1 5
V Sehwag 3 6 0 199 83 33.16 35.15 0 2
GC Smith 1 2 0 23 23 11.50 31.08 0 0
SR Tendulkar 25 43 3 1659 148 41.47 35.46 2 10

is captain 25 45 6 1736 146 44.51 41.95 4 10


is not captain 139 241 26 11552 270 53.73 42.59 32 53

1st team innings 164 164 10 9105 270 59.12 43.73 30 39


2nd team innings 132 122 22 4183 180 41.83 40.07 6 24

1st match innings 75 75 3 4121 222 57.23 44.89 15 15


2nd match innings 89 89 7 4984 270 60.78 42.81 15 24
3rd match innings 67 65 4 2608 180 42.75 40.49 5 15
4th match innings 65 57 18 1575 103* 40.38 39.39 1 9

won match 56 92 14 5131 270 65.78 47.57 15 23


lost match 49 98 5 2778 146* 29.87 35.08 4 12
drawn match 59 96 13 5379 222 64.80 42.84 17 28

Batting position
1 3 3 0 72 38 24.00 25.89 0 0
2 14 20 4 735 146* 45.93 42.26 4 1
3 134 219 20 10524 270 52.88 42.78 28 50
4 16 21 3 957 146 53.16 39.75 2 6
5 11 11 3 308 144* 38.50 37.19 1 1
6 6 8 2 413 180 68.83 51.94 1 2
7 4 4 0 279 95 69.75 45.51 0 3

ODI record
Career averages
Mat Runs HS Ave SR 10 50 4s 6s
0
Overall 344 10889 153 39.16 71.24 12 83 950 42

Career summary
Grouping Mat Runs HS Ave SR 10 50 4s 6s
0
Asia XI 1 75 75* - 105.63 0 1 5 0
ICC World XI 3 46 26 15.33 52.87 0 0 3 0
India 340 10768 153 39.15 71.18 12 82 942 42

v Australia 43 974 80 24.97 66.94 0 8 85 2


v Bangladesh 10 197 60 32.83 64.59 0 2 13 0
v Bermuda 1 7 7* - 350.00 0 0 0 1
v England 30 1012 92* 38.92 77.48 0 11 103 5
v ICC World XI 1 75 75* - 105.63 0 1 5 0
v Ireland 1 - - - - - - - -
v Kenya 11 358 104* 71.60 74.58 1 1 33 1
v Namibia 1 - - - - - - - -
v Netherlands 1 17 17 17.00 44.73 0 0 0 0
v New Zealand 31 1032 153 41.28 69.58 2 5 96 10
v Pakistan 58 1899 107 36.51 67.17 2 14 157 1
v Scotland 1 10 10* - 125.00 0 0 2 0
v South Africa 36 1309 84 39.66 66.54 0 14 116 4
v Sri Lanka 46 1662 145 48.88 75.20 3 11 144 8
v UAE 1 104 104 104.00 111.82 1 0 8 0
v West Indies 40 1348 109* 42.12 74.39 3 8 127 10
v Zimbabwe 32 885 85 36.87 72.12 0 8 61 0

in Australia 22 666 84 33.30 67.13 0 7 53 0


in Bangladesh 9 295 60 42.14 66.44 0 2 23 0
in Canada 18 415 90 27.66 59.20 0 2 27 3
in England 32 1238 145 45.85 80.65 2 11 117 7
in India 97 3406 153 43.11 78.53 6 24 317 16
in Ireland 4 112 74 37.33 73.68 0 1 10 0
in Kenya 8 238 68* 39.66 65.02 0 2 27 0
in Malaysia 4 39 26 9.75 46.42 0 0 5 0
in Netherlands 2 0 0 0.00 0.00 0 0 0 0
in New Zealand 12 425 123* 38.63 63.33 1 2 36 3
in Pakistan 11 503 99 50.30 73.00 0 6 51 0
in Scotland 1 10 10* - 125.00 0 0 2 0
in Singapore 6 190 103* 38.00 73.92 1 0 18 2
in South Africa 30 930 84 44.28 64.89 0 10 70 4
in Sri Lanka 42 1156 104 38.53 68.60 1 8 88 3
Career averages
Mat Runs HS Ave SR 10 50 4s 6s
0
in UAE 17 538 92 31.64 59.57 0 4 41 0
in West Indies 15 408 105 34.00 68.11 1 2 38 4
in Zimbabwe 14 320 72* 32.00 74.94 0 2 27 0

home 97 3406 153 43.11 78.53 6 24 317 16


away 120 4044 123* 41.26 69.44 2 37 349 16
neutral 127 3439 145 34.04 67.11 4 22 284 10

1996 20 475 90 27.94 69.54 0 3 32 1


1997 31 951 107 39.62 63.69 1 8 77 2
1998 14 283 64 21.76 54.84 0 1 16 0
1999 43 1761 153 46.34 75.16 6 8 164 12
2000 31 980 85 35.00 63.80 0 9 91 1
2001 24 740 80 43.52 70.74 0 6 58 1
2002 28 913 109* 48.05 76.65 1 7 70 2
2003 23 623 62 41.53 64.49 0 4 50 4
2004 31 1025 104 39.42 74.98 1 10 85 2
2005 30 1092 104 47.47 74.64 2 9 100 2
2006 27 919 105 35.34 73.22 1 8 112 3
2007 31 823 92* 37.40 82.05 0 8 75 10
2009 6 180 76 36.00 68.70 0 1 11 2
2011 5 124 69 24.80 77.50 0 1 9 0

Under captain
M Azharuddin 34 1206 145 40.20 74.39 4 6 103 4
MS Dhoni 17 355 76 23.66 70.71 0 2 25 3
R Dravid 79 2658 105 42.19 75.42 2 25 275 14
SC Ganguly 133 4229 109* 41.87 71.90 3 34 346 12
A Jadeja 13 320 81 26.66 61.42 0 2 31 0
SM Pollock 3 46 26 15.33 52.87 0 0 3 0
SR Tendulkar 65 2075 153 38.42 65.91 3 14 167 9

is captain 79 2658 105 42.19 75.42 2 25 275 14


is not captain 265 8231 153 38.28 69.99 10 58 675 28

is designated keeper 73 2300 145 44.23 72.60 4 14 193 9


is not keeper 271 8589 153 38.00 70.88 8 69 757 33

1st match innings 168 6202 153 42.77 73.22 9 48 528 27


2nd match innings 171 4687 109* 35.24 68.78 3 35 422 15

day/night match 147 4870 123* 40.24 70.41 5 38 408 13


day match 197 6019 153 38.33 71.92 7 45 542 29

Career averages
Mat Runs HS Ave SR 10 50 4s 6s
0
won match 160 5729 153 50.69 75.27 8 47 506 26
lost match 165 4807 123* 31.01 67.24 4 33 408 15
tied match 2 42 23 21.00 55.26 0 0 5 0
no result 17 311 82 38.87 69.41 0 3 31 1

Tournament Mat Runs HS Ave SR 10 50 4s 6s


0
World Cup 22 860 145 61.42 74.97 2 6 76 3
Asia Cup 13 334 104 37.11 78.22 1 2 29 1
Aus Tri Series (CB) 18 545 84 32.05 65.34 0 6 45 0
ICC Champions Trophy 19 627 76 48.23 73.33 0 6 56 1

tournament finals 24 729 103* 34.71 68.13 1 3 59 4


tournament 4 128 58 42.66 66.32 0 1 12 0
semi-finals
tournament 2 57 48 28.50 58.16 0 0 5 0
quarter-finals
preliminary 1 68 68* - 78.16 0 1 7 0
quarter-finals
preliminary matches 153 4555 145 37.33 69.07 5 38 390 11

Batting position Mat Runs HS Ave SR 10 50 4s 6s


0
1 8 191 85 27.28 60.63 0 1 16 1
2 13 595 105 45.76 70.91 1 6 64 3
3 109 4000 153 38.83 69.60 7 27 363 15
4 102 3301 109* 36.27 70.91 2 26 300 4
5 69 2459 104 43.91 73.60 2 22 181 15
6 13 306 51 51.00 95.03 0 1 25 3
7 3 26 16 26.00 59.09 0 0 1 1
8 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 from 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.

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