In all this hype and hoopla over Sachin @ 20, spare a thought for Rahul Dravid. One of the greatest servants of Indian cricket, I don’t think Dravid gets his due. Under the banyan tree’s – Sachin Tendulkar – shadow, Dravid has chosen to play second fiddle. But 11,000 Test runs don’t lie. They cannot lie. For the sheer quality of those runs is undeniable and undisputed.
Let us look at the facts. Dravid has now scored more runs than Sunil Gavaskar, Gundappa Vishwanath, Dilip Vengsarkar, Jimmy Amarnath, Saurav Ganguly and VVS Laxman. And he has done so unobtrusively and with no fuss. At 32 for 4, when he began building the partnership with Yuvraj Singh in Ahmedabad, he played with fluency that one has not seen from him in a long time. Lately, Dravid had become overly circumspect, even dour; trapping himself in defensive state of mind which often saw him getting bogged down, giving up his wicket and not being able to go on to play a long fluent innings. On getting his hundred, Dravid exulted, his delight visible to one and all. His 27th century obviously meant a lot to him. Only Gavaskar with 34 hundreds and Tendulkar with 43 are ahead of him in the Indian pecking order. The ease with which Dravid played at Motera has convinced me that there is a fair bit of cricket still left in him. More than that, there is a hunger in Dravid’s belly to rack up more runs.
Rahul Dravid – True Grit
After having been drafted into the one day squad, after a long hiatus, for the Champions Trophy, Dravid was quickly consigned to the rubbish heap all over again. Dravid has never complained. Even during those dark days when he was turned into a makeshift keeper for the one dayers. He has never grouched. Makeshift keeper, makeshift opener, makeshift captain; he has performed all the roles with great servitude. Maybe that is why Dravid’s 177 at Motera was scored at a fair clip. Some of the strokes had the Dravid signature – high left elbow as his free flowing hands crashed the ball on the off side. The innings had certain other characteristics – aggression for one. Somewhere deep down, Dravid is hurt at the recall to the one day side after top order batsmen failed to cope with the short ball in England during the T 20 World Cup and the equally quick jettisoning after the Champions Trophy debacle. Determination has been writ large on his face these days as he sets out to show his detractors what real quality is all about.
The thing about Dravid is that he has slipped into all the roles that were necessary for him to fulfil as a player. The only time one saw him really angry was when he inexplicably chucked up captaincy. India had done well in England, winning the Test series and losing the one-dayers by a whisker. Yet, Dravid called it quits. He has never explained why. He has not been forthcoming about what happened behind the scenes. This was also the time when the big three – Tendulkar, Dravid and Ganguly – were collectively asked to sit out of the T20 World Cup which began in South Africa with hardly a day’s interregnum.
Dravid, like a true servant of Indian cricket has swallowed all the indignities heaped on him and gone about his job of making runs when it really matters. When he pumped his fist at scoring the hundred in Motera, he was telling a lot of people where to get off. Sadly a brilliant record has gone unnoticed due to the Banyan Tree’s overarching shadow. If Tendulkar has amassed nearly 13,000 Test runs, then Dravid is not too far behind with 11,000. Not many will say it openly, but Dravid has done yeoman service in tough situations. He has been Mr Dependable and a crisis junkie rolled into one. Dravid has the runs, the class, the technical perfectitude to be ranked along with Tendulkar on a pedestal. Where Sachin scores over modern batsmen is his run making hunger and appetite in one day cricket. He is undoubtedly the greatest one day batsman, but perhaps not the greatest Test batsman. Brian Lara and Rahul Dravid can take pride in their careers and the quality of the runs that they have scored. Both can rival Tendulkar in the Test arena.
