Dravid- The Ultimate Team man

John Wright in his book Indian summers mentions the fact of how Sachin was not very sure and keen on batting at No 4 for India though it helped the team balance during the Natwest series in England. I personally feel that was the right thing to do on Sachin’s part since it helped him bring out the best in him. But the problem with this was Sehwag who was in a brilliant form himself or for that matter Ganguly who gave the much preferred Left hand right hand opening combination at the top had to move down the order.  Another problem was, the stability of the middle order had to revolve around Sachin but since he wanted to go on top of the order the whole team balance was ruined. I guess that is the difference between Sachin and Dravid. Though numbers speak volumes about Sachin as a batsman there are a lot of other aspects to cricket than just batting.  Team success is a more important factor than personal glory.

World cup 2003 is an instance where a lot is been spoken about Sachin’s dominance over all the attacks but the right balance to the team was provided by Dravid by going down the order and also taking up the role of a wicket keeper which helped the team bring in that one extra batsmen and eventually it ended up in India reaching the final of the World cup.

Well it is funny in a way that twenty years down the line it is easy for people to remember an Individual record than say a test series win in England after twenty years.  Many cricketing prodigies can only dream of what he has done for the Indian cricket, fighting it out all day long in so many matches and bringing glory to his nation! He’s always been selfless and made sure that his bat does all the talking. The only thing that he has probably lacked in his career would be a good PR agent who would have made him more recognizable in terms of performance and not go unnoticed all the time. Lack of acknowledgement never de-motivated him! He has still maintained that selfless approach towards life and his love – Cricket! No matter the selectors pick him or drop him, he will continue making contributions in the Indian cricket with his selfless, yet (intentionally) unnoticed efforts!

I would end this by quoting what Shane Warne mentioned about Dravid ““The fortress could also describe Rahul. Because once, Dravid was set, you needed the bowling equivalent to a dozen cannons firing all at once to blast him down.”