Suppose you are Veeru tied in a rope and a sharp shooter has aimed at your head ready to break it like a watermelon. Gabbar says chose one man to play for you. "Jab tak wo out nahi hoga, tab tak tumhari saanse chalti rahegi." Without a blinker of thought you would appoint Rahul Dravid. He would save your life. As he has been doing for India for fifteen continuous years. For no reasons he is called the Great Wall Of India.
Dravid hates this figure of speech for him. A wall is lifeless all it does is blocks things. It separates intruders to trespass. Dravid does more than that. He stands, he blocks he reacts and scores. 12200 plus run and still counting. With his kind of average he goes , he is ought to make 50 plus run every innings. Wall, a lifeless being cant do it. For its not about blocking only, it is also about making runs and that too with conviction.
Dravid, they say lacks aggression. For me, he is the biggest aggressor. Aggression is not about reacting. Its more about taking the blows and be indifferent about it. He plays with the mind of the bowlers. He let them bowl where they want to bowl and finally wins the battle by making them bowl where he wants them to bowl. Hardly any bowler has perturbed him with a bouncer or an outswinger. He would let them bowl it , silently swaying away. And this aggression remains a secret between him and the bowlers. For millions, when he gets out , the crowd applause as it brings Sachin to play. He hears it and go back relaxing as he has already made a brilliant platform for shotmakers to have a shot.
Today even a die hard Tendulkar and Sehwag worshipper are willing to wait for if Dravid gets out, disaster spells. I remember an opening test match against Srilanka in Ahemdabad. Our score read 32 for 4 . Sachin, Sehwag, Laxman had gone. For me life was normal as Dravid stayed. I could go to work in peace as Dravid calmly went on to make 140 and our score was 400 plus. If Dravid bats normal proceedings of business can keep on. If Rahul is at crease , "All is Well".
Dravid is the least obtrusive of all the players, he demands little mind space. He has passion and intelligence on each of his sleeves. His presence in a public place does not evoke chaos which is associated with other stars of our cricket team. He still can eat out in normal restaurants in Bangalore and move at ease in North East after IPL. He is like a workman. A normal worker , who does his job with perfection and goes to home to have a good night sleep.
I have been one of those passionate follower of Dravid since early 2000 and read anything that was written about him. Boquets and brickbats. During the 2002 tour of England, Dravid was reading Tough Time Never Lasts , Tough People Do. I dont know what did the book did to him, for he satrted scoring in heaps. This was the phase when his career average was over 70 for a stretch of around 5 years.
Once Dravid told his friend (while doing wonders for Karnataka) , "I dont want to be just any other cricketer, I want to be bracketed with Gavaskar and Gundappa Vishwanath". And now he ranks above them in terms of wonders he has done for the team.
Every profession has uber professional, one who is looked up by his peers as role model, for the ability to do things that even the best amongst them can't perform. And it is not just about skills. It is about temperament, about discipline, about a remarkable ability to perforn when going gets rough. For decade and a half RD has been doing it effortlessly and consistently. That is why it seems perfectly natural that he steps towards to strengthen the bridge between the present and the future whenever the great hope of future beckons.
Once he retires, perhaps people would say X, Y or Z can succeed him. However, to match the masterclass he has been painting for years would be irreplaceable
Dravid hates this figure of speech for him. A wall is lifeless all it does is blocks things. It separates intruders to trespass. Dravid does more than that. He stands, he blocks he reacts and scores. 12200 plus run and still counting. With his kind of average he goes , he is ought to make 50 plus run every innings. Wall, a lifeless being cant do it. For its not about blocking only, it is also about making runs and that too with conviction.
Dravid, they say lacks aggression. For me, he is the biggest aggressor. Aggression is not about reacting. Its more about taking the blows and be indifferent about it. He plays with the mind of the bowlers. He let them bowl where they want to bowl and finally wins the battle by making them bowl where he wants them to bowl. Hardly any bowler has perturbed him with a bouncer or an outswinger. He would let them bowl it , silently swaying away. And this aggression remains a secret between him and the bowlers. For millions, when he gets out , the crowd applause as it brings Sachin to play. He hears it and go back relaxing as he has already made a brilliant platform for shotmakers to have a shot.
Today even a die hard Tendulkar and Sehwag worshipper are willing to wait for if Dravid gets out, disaster spells. I remember an opening test match against Srilanka in Ahemdabad. Our score read 32 for 4 . Sachin, Sehwag, Laxman had gone. For me life was normal as Dravid stayed. I could go to work in peace as Dravid calmly went on to make 140 and our score was 400 plus. If Dravid bats normal proceedings of business can keep on. If Rahul is at crease , "All is Well".
Dravid is the least obtrusive of all the players, he demands little mind space. He has passion and intelligence on each of his sleeves. His presence in a public place does not evoke chaos which is associated with other stars of our cricket team. He still can eat out in normal restaurants in Bangalore and move at ease in North East after IPL. He is like a workman. A normal worker , who does his job with perfection and goes to home to have a good night sleep.
I have been one of those passionate follower of Dravid since early 2000 and read anything that was written about him. Boquets and brickbats. During the 2002 tour of England, Dravid was reading Tough Time Never Lasts , Tough People Do. I dont know what did the book did to him, for he satrted scoring in heaps. This was the phase when his career average was over 70 for a stretch of around 5 years.
Once Dravid told his friend (while doing wonders for Karnataka) , "I dont want to be just any other cricketer, I want to be bracketed with Gavaskar and Gundappa Vishwanath". And now he ranks above them in terms of wonders he has done for the team.
Every profession has uber professional, one who is looked up by his peers as role model, for the ability to do things that even the best amongst them can't perform. And it is not just about skills. It is about temperament, about discipline, about a remarkable ability to perforn when going gets rough. For decade and a half RD has been doing it effortlessly and consistently. That is why it seems perfectly natural that he steps towards to strengthen the bridge between the present and the future whenever the great hope of future beckons.
Once he retires, perhaps people would say X, Y or Z can succeed him. However, to match the masterclass he has been painting for years would be irreplaceable
YES!!!!
ReplyDeletei Love Rahul Dravid...for what he is, no-nonsense and a good performer. No bragging, no craving for space. :)
And when the wall falls in India's Defence is one more Marshal, Laxman, who can rally the batting minions and take it to Safety and a win... In recent memory Mohali and even the curresnt test
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