Test Cricket encounter is much like a five day Medieval time battle. It starts a couple hours after sunrise and ends an hour before sunset. The kings were highly acknowledged for expanding their empire back then. When it comes to Test Cricket, it’s the soldiers, i.e., the players that are duly applauded for playing their part in establishing their nation’s dominance.
Standing under the red hot sun for five continuous days, you don’t just play with bat, ball and a couple sets of stumps & bails. You do play with the minds of your opponent team members as well. That being said, the cricket universe did witness some unplayable minds grace the sport now and then, here and there. One such unplayable as well as ungettable cricketing mind is Rahul Dravid.
Glenn McGrath, Dale Steyn, Jason Gillespie, Shoaib Akhtar, Bret Lee, Shane Bond, Shane Warne and some other legends have ruled the bowling department during the late 1990's and the early 2000’s. Ask them all regarding the things that ate up most of their mind. High certainty for all of them to mention this one common thing and that would be picking up the wicket of Rahul Dravid in a Test match. That’s the same man whom plenty of cricketers and a lot more fans would pick to bat for their life if asked to pick one.
He made his debut back in 1996 against England at The Lord’s where he managed a fair 95 on the scoreboard. From that innings to his last, Rahul Dravid had managed to take the term class to a whole next level. He had not just been that kind of a player that keeps building the innings, but also he had been that one that built them in a quite unusual way. There was a pattern in the way this man scored runs when it came to each of the long innings that he played. The energy was distributed at certain points throughout the innings. And as a part of the process, he did push the patient-most bowlers far beyond their patience threshold.
As far as an average long innings of his is concerned, Rahul Dravid plays quite good number of defensive strokes and runs between the wickets whenever it seems possible. And the moment it looks to him that the bowler reached his saturation point where he expects him to carry on the same way he’s been doing, he goes for a boundary or a two. The irony is that nobody knows when that moment is coming their way. Neither you, nor the bowler. The good thing about the same is that his strokes that send the ball to the ropes look so lovely that they make you feel they’re worth the wait. Once he’s done with that, he then again gets back to his default defensive stroke play and his innings keeps going that way. That’s how he smoothly scores a hundred and it doesn’t really appear like he did.
He is colloquially known as The Wall for his ability to bat for hours together and take his team to a solidified position. He has had some really good partnerships with Sehwag, Sourav, Laxman etc. Who doesn’t really not recall his 376 and 303 run partnerships with VVS Laxman against the Aussies at the Eden Gardens and at the Oval, Adelaide during the 2001–02 & 2003–04 Border-Gavaskar series’ when the Indian cricket team lands in similar situations like how it did in those games? And who even forgets his 410 run opening wicket partnership with Sehwag against Pakistan? His 331 run partnership with Tendulkar and 318 run partnership with Sourav are still the third and fourth highest partnerships in ODI cricket history.
Rahul can be called the unsung hero of Indian cricket for his efforts haven’t got recognized or haven’t been rewarded aptly. His test career was goddamn remarkable. His ODI career was quite good. As he marched towards the end of his career, he was recalled into the Indian ODI squad that toured England in 2011 after exclusion from the squad following the Indian team’s failure in the 2009 ICC Champions trophy. He then announced that it would be his last ODI series and he did manage to have a decent one.
There were times when Rahul Dravid did deviate from his trademark defensive game and entertained the Indian cricket fans with some aggressive play. He does hold the record for second fastest fifty for India in ODI cricket. He reached the half-century mark after facing only 22 deliveries. Also in the one off Twenty-20 game he represented India in, he smashed 31 off 21 against the English at Manchester. It’s in the same innings that he sent the ball flying into the stands for three consecutive deliveries and till date, he remains the only player to do so right in his Twenty-20 International debut game.
What was considered adversity in the sport’s usual consensus was looked at as an opportunity by Rahul Dravid. And that brings us to one of the most underrated aspects of The Wall. Back in early 2000’s, the Indian cricket team had nobody to take up this job of keeping wickets. The then captain Sourav Ganguly called up his personal sports manufacturer and ordered three pairs of keeping pads and gloves. The then whole Indian team then gifted Rahul Dravid with a big kitbag which included the wicket-keeping equipment that Sourav ordered. That’s how they got him to say a yes. The team then took a plane to West Indies. What followed that up was Rahul Dravid doing a phenomenal job as a wicket-keeper.
After his wicket-keeping reign got over, he went back to the slips. He then turned out to be outstanding yet another time at yet another thing. He went on to become the non wicket-keeping fielder with the highest number of catches in Test cricket. He also holds the record for the highest number of balls played in Test cricket history. He faced a mammoth 31,258 deliveries as a Test batsman. In that process, he stayed on the crease for 44,152 minutes. These are a few of the most overlooked records which I feel would remain unbroken for generations to come.
Throughout his affiliation with the BCCI, he has always been someone who felt he had a sense of responsibility towards the younger generation cricketers and always helped them in their roadway regardless of the role he was appointed into. He did help shape up the stars like Pravin Tambe, Ajinkya Rahane, Sanju Samson, etc, when he was a mentor for Rajasthan Royals in the IPL. He then started coaching the list-A Indian team and also the Indian U-19 cricket team that went on winning the World Cup in 2018. Indian cricket future is now safe considering the fact that a whole bunch of cricketers like Shubman Gill, Prithvi Shaw, etc, that can end up playing in the Indian side for a whole generation have already been prepared by him.
In 2019, he’s been appointed the head of the National Cricket Academy in Bengaluru. He has been quite an active head since day one and the academy has been undergoing significant changes since then. Rahul Dravid turns 47 today and let’s hope he’d keep playing the role he has always played in making the Indian Cricket better.
Rahul Dravid coming out to bat with his arm sleeves and helmet on gave everybody a hope regardless of how complex the Indian team’s situation was. He had the capability to drive the team home when landed in limbo. This man asking the umpire for a guard was one of the most calming sights this planet probably has ever witnessed. And that back-foot punch he threw onto the ball had the most elegant look. And all of these probably resulted in him being named the sexiest sportsperson alive in 2005. He did beat up Yuvraj Singh too in the competition. Lol.
There’s sometimes a noticeable change in somebody’s attributes with the reason behind that remaining unnoticed. And on a personal note, my patience threshold took a significant rise over the years and only after I watch back those innings ball to ball, I now realize the monumental role that Rahul Dravid played in raising the bar. I at the end, wish Rahul Dravid a very happy 47th birthday and I hope there are hazaro saal ahead of The Wall.
Disclaimer: I don’t own any kind of copyrights as far as the images and videos I’ve made use of in this article are concerned.
