Celebrating Rahul Dravid

From Gopal Rangachary, India
I can remember July 1st 2006, as clear as it were yesterday. Rahul Dravid after having scored over 40% of India's first innings of 200 on a Jamaica minefield, was compiling an even better half century in the second innings to set up another Indian test match win overseas. A performance largely ignored because it coincided with the Soccer World Cup, and happened past normal people's bed times in India, it was probably the best bad wicket batting by an Indian batsman in 20 years, since Sunny Gavaskar signed off with that tragic 96 at Bangalore against Pakistan. As Cricinfo said “It was like a game happening on 2 pitches, one for Dravid and another for the 21 others (including Lara, Chanderpaul, Sarwan, VVS, Sehwag and co).":

Watching him bat that day, if you had come up to me and said that it would be the last significant contribution Rahul Dravid would make to Indian Test cricket, I would have directed you to the psychiatric department of a much recommended hospital. Further, he was Indian captain then, Ganguly it seemed was gone for ever, Sachin was once again out with injury , and VVS had failed to capitalize on the chance to bat at his beloved No 3 position.

I used to joke that only 2 people in India knew when to quit at the top of their game, Gavaskar and Sonia Gandhi, and was sure Dravid would be an addition to that list. As I write this piece Dravid has played possibly his last Test innings (3 off 14 after a second ball duck to Jason Krezja-). In the 25 test matches since that Jamaica masterpiece he has averaged half his earlier career average of 58, has been dropped from the one day side, and will hopefully go before he is shoved from the Test team.

He has endured misery in the 2007 World Cup and humiliation in the IPL, and gave up the captaincy abruptly to the great benefit of thousands of conspiracy theorists. Well, you know what, I actually blame myself for this. We hear sportsmen are superstitious, but very little has been written about the superstition of sports fans. When I moved into my apartment in Bangalore in August 2002, the first Test match I watched was the Headingley one, where Dravid's masterful 148 led India to victory. The Jamaica Test mentioned earlier was the last match I saw in that apartment.

My new house is nice, but unlucky for Dravid The aim of this piece is not to bemoan his fate , or to urge him to go, but simply to celebrate the greatest match winner (batsman) India has ever produced. Before you sharpen your knives, read the phrase again 'match winner'.

From the start of the Ganguly era through till that Jamaica game in 2006, Dravid averaged 96 runs an innings in the 17 matches India won. It gets better - he averaged 108 in the 7 overseas wins in that period, 111 in the 12 wins under Saurav Ganguly, and played masterpieces such as his double hundreds in Adelaide and Rawalpindi, 2 hundreds in the same game at Calcutta, the 148 on a Headingley green top and that epic partnership with VVS in THAT match in Calcutta in 2001. Just by comparison Sachin averaged 55 in that same period in India wins and 52 in wins under Saurav. Almost every major overseas win in that period seemed to be shaped by Dravid. That doesn't necessarily mean that he was a better batsman than Sachin, simply one whose performances meant more.

I read an article by Salim Yousuf on Gavaskar's epic knock of 96 at Bangalore in 1986. Yousuf was the Pakistani wicketkeeper who scored the second highest score in that match (45 not out) - and he mentioned "I batted despite the pitch, played my natural game and took risks, while Sunny played the perfect game for that pitch." So while a Sachin backed himself to hit Shane Warne over deep mid wicket, even if was bowling leg spinners into the rough from around the wicket, VVS would hit a sharply turning leg break over cover, and follow up with a flick over midwicket from an identical ball, and Saurav would back himself to beat the most populous off side cordon, Dravid would play in a risk free fashion - with a perfect technique.

A Sanjay Bangar watching Dravid at the other end at Headingley, would probably feel that he could try to play the same way as Dravid. However watching Sachin collar a perfectly good ball over extra cover, would probably leave him awestruck. Dravid has the record for the maximum number of 100 partnerships, and it is my theory that a lot of it has to do with the way he bats.

I also felt Dravid was a lucky cricketer. His 233 in Adelaide was backed up by the most unlikely bowling performance from Ajit Agarkar, when he scored 180 at Calcutta in that partnership with VVS, Harbhajan Singh and Sachin Tendulkar bowled the Aussies out in the last session, Kumble won India the Calcutta test against Pakistan, after Dravid had scored hundreds in both innings ( and Dinesh Karthik's 93 too).

In contrast, Tendulkar has often been a tragic hero. An epic 100 at Madras against Pakistan was wasted by India's spineless lower order, when the 4 of them couldn't muster 15 runs between them, and many of his best innings have been lone hands. We have lost more matches than we have won when Sachin has scored a hundred.

As captain, Dravid was probably a disappointment. I thought he would bring his obviously immense cricketing acumen to the captaincy, and his start in one day cricket was encouraging. He was the only captain who knew how to use power plays and super subs- and he was willing to be adaptable - The one day series against Pakistan was won 4-1 without a single over of spin being bowled, for instance.

Funnily though, I have always felt that the conventional wisdom of Dravid's captaincy was completely off the mark. We have often heard that Dravid was a 'weak and defensive' captain. I felt it was his endeavour to be strong and aggressive that actually cost India. Would Saurav Ganguly really have declared when Sachin was on 194? Would a defensive captain have gone in with a 5 man bowling attack and put the England in at Bombay when all India needed was a draw? What about that audacious attempt to steal the Nagpur Test against England at the end? I felt Dravid's biggest failure as a captain was not being able to figure out when to be defensive.

And finally Rahul Dravid, the man. There is so much speculation and guessing we do based on things we see on the field, but you often hear the words 'A perfect gentleman' said about Dravid. I will only go by what I have heard directly, and a couple of things come to mind. Firstly his practice at the end of every series to specifically thank the opposing captains and team, for either their hospitality (or their visit as the case may be), and secondly his reaction to how he felt about being dropped from the one day side early in his career. In an interview with Rajdeep Sardesai he said "A lot of people did come and say to me that I deserved to be in the side, but I knew that I had to improve my all round game."

Unfortunately in inane diatribes about 'New India' , we seem to feel that innate decency conflicts with the willingness to win and determination. Ask the bowlers who tried to get Dravid out in his pomp, whether his was a soft wicket. He may not have been much of a sledger, but the bowlers knew that they were in for a hard grind when Dravid was around.

Dravid will not end his career with the record for the maximum matches, runs, centuries or even catches. His departure will be quiet, overshadowed by Saurav Ganguly and the exultation following the series win. People in Bangalore have never stopped trains or burnt effigies in his support. He may still have the contractual obligation to tolerate the idiosyncrasies of Vijay Mallaya and Ray Jennings. However, he will leave the game as India's greatest match winner with the bat and conclusively proved that good guys don't necessarily finish last.