Dravid's batting needs 'urgent maintenance work'
Siddhartha Talya
25-Feb-2013
AFP
Shashank Shekhar, in the Times of India, writes that Rahul Dravid requires some "urgent maintenance work" following the slide in his batting form since he resigned from captaincy. His performance in the Delhi Test, where he was dismissed in ways inconsistent with his technical correctness, is indicative of his failure to counter some new problems that have crept up in his game, Shekhar feels.
Dravid’s loss of touch is strange because in cricket it’s generally believed that technically sound batsmen have a better chance of coming out of form slumps than those who rely on individual skill and flair. But Dravid’s blues have stretched a bit too far for his own comfort. But it clearly has more than just a technical facet to it. When Dravid relinquished captaincy, it was well understood that the decision was a direct fallout of the stress he was carrying. To add to his woes, this unseemly debate over the place of seniors in the team came at a very inopportune time for him, when he was fighting his own battles.
Meanwhile, Harsha Bhogle, in the same newspaper, writes that Mahendra Singh Dhoni, India's new captain, must back Rahul Dravid to the hilt, given the pressure on him to deliver in Nagpur.
Siddhartha Talya is a senior sub-editor at ESPNcricinfo