Rahul Dravid...The Perfect Cricketer

There are few cricketers in Indian cricket, who have had as big an impact on Indian cricket as Rahul Dravid. On the field and off the field he has been a perfect gentleman, a guy young cricketers can look up to. In fact, the cricketing journey of Rahul Dravid offers some important lessons even to non cricket fans.

Dravid was inducted into the Indian team in 1996 and quickly established himself as a Test batsman. He was thought of as a batsman with compact technique and flawless defence and more suited for Test matches than the one dayers. Another aspect of his one day cricket which made him unbefitting for the shorter version of the game was his running between the wickets. Unsurprisingly, he was dropped from the one day squad. The fighter that he is, Rahul Dravid fought back into the one day team by ironing out the flaws. He still had the compact technique but along with it added some more shots to his arsenal which helped him score quickly. He dramatically improved his running between the wickets which not only allowed him to improve his strike rate, but also took off the pressure on him to go for big shots. The result – he ended up as the highest run getter in the 1999 world cup. To accept his omission from the ODI squad in true spirits, come back to the national team and be the highest run getter in the world cup shows the guy’s character.

Rahul Dravid has always put the team above self. From 2001 to 2005, Rahul Dravid was going through a dream run and was the number one batsman for India – both in test and one day cricket. In order to accommodate 7 batsmen and improve the team balance, the team management asked him to keep the wickets in ODIs. Being both batsman and wicketkeeper can be a challenging task for anyone – especially when the last time one kept wickets was at under-16 level. Also, as the number one batsman in the team, he could have easily declined to keep wickets. But again, keeping the team’s interest in mind, Dravid accepted the additional responsibility of wicket keeping and did it with distinction.

To be successful in international cricket over a longer period to time, one has to continuously keep on improving. Rahul Dravid is not known for his fielding, however, the effort he puts in to improve his fielding is commendable. Among the senior players, he is the only one who uses the sliding-stop technique to field the ball. Even the relatively younger players like Virendra Sehwag and Zaheer Khan can’t do it.

When compared to his teammates, Rahul Dravid is probably the least naturally talented of all. He doesn’t have the hand-eye coordination of Sehwag, the elegance of Saurav Ganguly and Yuvraj Singh, the wrists of VVS Laxman and the overflowing talent of Tendulkar. And yet, in the last decade and a half, along with Sachin, he has been the most successful of all the Indian batsmen. He has won more test matches for India than any other batsman – including Sachin. He is a perfect example of how hard work and dedication can take you places.

Rahul Dravid will always be remembered as a selfless and committed cricketer who played his heart out for India. If some of the other Indian players had his attitude, India would have been the number 1 team in the world long time ago.

Test or Twenty20

Chris Gayle’s comment the other day, “To hell with Test cricket, I love Twenty20”, has reopened the debate on Test cricket getting marginalized by Twenty20. Okay, these weren’t his exact words, but they nevertheless raise some important questions on how a contemporary cricketer views Test and Twenty20 cricket. Chris Gayle is not the only one with such views. His teammate Dwayne Bravo is unfit for Test matches, but surprisingly fit for Twenty20. Going forward, I think more and more cricketers will get these kinds of mysterious injuries which rule them out of (only) Test cricket.

Where does the problem lie? Does it lie with the cricketers because they prefer money over playing for their country? Or does it lie with the ICC, which is still in denial about the impact of Twenty20 cricket and refuses to create a window for a tournament like IPL, which though a domestic event, has become the number one tournament in world cricket?

Let’s see this from a cricketer’s perspective. Chris Gayle will potentially earn $800,000 annually playing for Kolkata Knight Riders, and that too by playing only for a few weeks. Should he be chastised for thinking he should be left alone for this period to earn some decent money? Moreover, the West Indies-England test series was not even in the FTP, it was a hastily arranged series to justify television deals. Isn’t he entitled to be a tad angry? Many former cricketers and experts are making condescending remarks about how playing for the country is the ultimate glory for a sportsman and that money can never buy it. I wonder how many of them would have made that choice if IPL had started in their playing days. Besides, cricketers play in IPL for only a month, the remaining time they are free to play for their country.

This brings us to the role ICC can play to fix the problem. First they must understand how big IPL is - both in terms of money and popularity - and create a window for the event. This will spare the players from making a choice between their country and franchisee. As they say, if you can’t beat them, join them.

Secondly, the ICC has to look into the issue of player burn out. As it is, the international cricket calendar is so crammed that players hardly get any breathing space. Now with IPL and possibly some more twenty20 tournaments, it will become virtually impossible for cricketers to play all forms of game throughout the year. And the form of cricket that gives sufficient rest with least financial loss is Test cricket. Naturally, cricketers will skip Test cricket to be injury free for the more lucrativeTwenty20 and ODIs – as Mahendra Singh Dhoni did last year by skipping the Test tour to Sri Lanka.

Something has to go and the most feasible candidate is the one day cricket. Test cricket cannot go and the cricketers (and administrators) will not let Twenty20 go. ICC has to slowly decrease the number of ODIs, which anyway have become largely uninteresting and predictable. In fact, the main reason for the arrival and popularity of Twenty20 was the monotonous nature of one day cricket.

Its high time ICC prioritizes the different forms of cricket and finds a way which preserves the importance of test cricket as well as takes care of player’s interest. Otherwise it won’t be long before players are dropped onto the field by a private jet on a Test match morning - that is, only if they decide to play.