The Dravid method
How did Rahul Dravid go from being a solid player to a stroke-filled, world-beating superman
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That special feeling: Rahul Dravid and Sourav Ganguly celebrate India's win in the Adelaide Test © AFP |
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.
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.
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.
"I always treat nets as a match. Driving and edging in the nets is not okay with me." |
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.
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.
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 just play cricket and enjoy it. I was on my own, and I learned things about myself and my game.
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.
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.
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 that I 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.
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Rahul Dravid the one-day player expresses himself © AFP |
Certainly one-day cricket does help your strokeplay. It gives you a bit of license with your strokes. When I practise for one-day cricket, I play a lot more shots in the nets, so subconsciously it is carried forward.
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.
Oh, yes. The mind does help sharpen your skills. When you are in the right frame of mind, a lot of things fall in to 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 little nervous and a little tense might not make another player nervous. It is a process of self-discovery.
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.
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.
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.
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 10. 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.
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.
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 a 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.
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.
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.
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.
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Rahul Dravid in the zone at Adelaide © Getty Images |
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.
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.
He was bowling well in that spell, but frankly I thought the ball was short and wide and there for the cut. But the thing with good bowling is that it draws mistakes from you. Good bowlers can create pressure and bring you out of your comfort zone.
You're glad to still be there. But you try to put it out of your mind and focus on the next ball.
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.
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.
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.
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.