'I decide what happens on the field' - Dravid

Rahul Dravid has rubbished public perceptions of Greg Chappell running the show, claiming that he is his own man. In an extensive interview to the Hindustan Times he stated: "I decide what happens on the field. Tactics and decisions taken on the field are purely my decisions. He [Chappell] does run whatever happens outside the field."

Dravid was quick to add that he shared a good relationship with Chappell and had no intention of losing any sleep over what people construed of their relationship." I am not interested in how people perceive me. Because lots of times I realised that people's perception of certain players is far from reality. What is important is that the team knows what is happening Your team-mates know you like nobody else. We have a good relationship between Greg and me."

Dravid also spoke out on his supposed bad vibes with Sourav Ganguly and said dropping Ganguly had not been a very tough decision. Drawing a parallel with the case of Anil Kumble, he said, "If Kumble can sit out" he didn't see any issue on anybody else being dropped. "Anil Kumble has been left out of the team and there has been no greater cricketer in Indian cricket in the last decade and a half. If Kumble can sit out, I don't see any reason why there should be an issue on anybody else in this team -- and that includes me and [Sachin] Tendulkar. I was clear about that, it was not a difficult decision for me to deal with.

"You may not always be comfortable with the decision you take on a personal level. The hardest thing is telling people that they are being dropped, especially when it is a great cricketer or if it has been one of your colleagues. It is not easy. But you know that, when you are made the captain of a team, you are given the job to do what is right for the team, and if you are doing that with the right intentions and the right conscience, it is not a difficult decision to make."

Citing the precedence of Tendulkar and Mohammad Azharuddin, Dravid said he saw no reason why he and Ganguly can't get along. "Like the time when Azharuddin was captain, then Tendulkar took over and then Azharuddin took over again. The only thing is that Tendulkar and Azharuddin were able to deal with it. I don't see why we can't. We are dealing with it in the best way we can. It's not a personal thing."

He praised Chappell for "pushing and challenging" the players, which in turn led to the recent Indian successes in ODIs. "The fact that they [Irfan Pathan and Yuvraj Singh] have raised their game, and the emergence of Mahendra Singh Dhoni, coming in and doing what he is doing, is what brings freshness to the team. It might even be an old player, it might be an experienced player who finds something new in his game, something that takes him to another level. That is what we lacked in the last couple of years. I think Greg coming and challenging us and pushing us has made some of these guys realise that we were stagnating."

Dravid also denied that Chappell was often dogmatic. "I have not found him rigid. To be honest, he is a very relaxed person. I think having played the game, seen success, seen failure, been a coach, a selector, his ideas are, in fact, quite unique. To be honest, he has tried to give us more experience by making us do things in a relaxed manner and do different things, rather than letting us go through the same routine again and again..."