Remembering Rahul Dravid: The perfect gentleman

Some people are natural magicians. They are destined for greatness. You know they will be hailed as geniuses the moment they enter their fields. They are people like Roger Federer, Sachin Tendulkar, Brian Lara.

But there are others who are not so lucky. They work hard. They work very hard. They are questioned every second, they are doubted every second. They are laughed off after every poor performance. Yet they fight. They fight, to prove that they belong there. To prove that they deserve to be rated with the best.

Rahul Sharad Dravid belongs to the second category.

Perhaps the most under-rated cricketer to be talked about in recent years, Rahul Dravid was the backbone of the Indian cricket team for well over a decade. Constantly overshadowed by the easy genius of Sachin and the maverick abilities of Sourav, Dravid was always the lesser of the three musketeers. The reason for that was simple. Whenever Dravid played well, someone overshadowed him. While Sachin and Sourav were busy making their records, on the other side of the wicket there was always one man who watched them achieve glory.

Sample this – Ganguly made a career best 183 in the 1999 World Cup. Great innings. The man on the other end? Rahul Dravid. Sachin made a then career best 186 against New Zealand in Vizag. Super knock. Who was at the other end? Rahul Dravid. Laxman made 281 in “that” Test. Who was with him? Rahul Dravid. The list can go on and on.

Dravid made his debut at Lord’s in 1996 with a brilliant 95. However, he was condemned as a one-format-wonder. He was too slow, too technically correct. While his position in the Test team was settled, his ODI position was always under threat. He worked on it. He produced 6 ODI hundreds in 1999. He had begun to learn that to survive, he would always have to keep adjusting. And how well he adjusted – he ended his career with more than 10,000 ODI runs.

We all hail Yuvraj and Dhoni as great finishers, but the art of finishing was taught by the perfectionist that was Dravid. Along with Kaif and Yuvraj, he finished many games for India in the middle of the last decade. If he needed to anchor an innings, he slowed. If he needed to go for hits, he went for it. Very few people will know or remember that he has the second-fastest 50 for India in ODIs.

And yet the BCCI was ruthless with him. He wasn’t playing well in 2007, so he was fired from the ODI side. The selectors wanted young blood. But they didn’t remove him from the Test side, because the young blood simply wasn’t good enough for Dravid’s Test spot. So he was kept there.

That wasn’t all. At the 2009 Champions Trophy in South Africa, the selectors knew that no one could play on bouncy wickets as well as Dravid. So he was recalled. He played very well. And then he was dumped, again. He was recalled again for the 2011 England ODI series.

By then, even Rahul had had enough. He called it quits in ODIs. You can’t treat a genius like that.

And yet, he never said anything. Ganguly was always very vocal. Even Tendulkar, through indirect methods, showed his frustration (remember that declaration on 194*?). Tendulkar was nearly perfect. But Dravid, he was perfect. Just like his batting. Just like his attitude towards life. It is hard to remember a negative reaction from him to anything.

You have to wonder how many runs Sachin would have made if Dravid wasn’t there. If Dravid hadn’t been there to take off the shine from the new ball and leave the easier task for the middle order, would they really have been that good?

It’s an open secret that Tendulkar doesn’t want to move from the no. 4 spot. It’s a position which allowed him to enjoy the reward of the hard work that Dravid had already put in. Tendulkar and Dravid put together more than 15 century stands. And the credit more often than not goes to Sachin. Not that Dravid ever resented it. Like a gentleman, he always accepted it.

I, for one, think that the God of cricket is fantastic. But I have more respect for “The Wall” that stood outside, protecting the God.

Why did Dravid not get the spotlight more often? Why wasn’t his photo splashed on the first page on newspapers as often as the others?

Is it because you never saw him taking his shirt off on the balcony of Lord’s? Because he never danced on the pitch to celebrate? Because he did not have any airs or throw any tantrums? Because he never came up with controversial comments? Because he never tried to act “cool”? Because he did not hit as many sixes as Sachin, Dhoni or Yuvraj?

Perhaps Dravid’s greatest failure here is that he is a gentleman. He was not naughty and boisterous like Yuvraj and Kohli, not the jumping enthusiast that Raina is, not as cool as Dhoni, not as artistic as Sachin. You need to have a USP beyond cricket to be popular with the media. Nobody told that to Dravid. He always believed that cricket was enough.

With the advent of T-20, a lot of new things have come in. The scoops, the helicopter shots, the intentional edges, the sledging, the partying, et al. However, the sight of Dravid hitting three nice cricket shots for sixes is what drove me to watch cricket.

The sight of Dravid pulling the bowl with authority makes all the above shots look distinctly inferior. His drives and pulls were the work of a perfect genius. The mesmerizing sight of Dravid playing the most difficult of balls with perfection is what described cricket best.

We love you Rahul, and we respect you. For standing up when the chips were down. For coming forward and taking responsibility when no one else would. For standing up to all the nonsense without uttering a single word. For adapting whenever you were asked to adapt. For keeping the spirit of game alive with your gentleman-like attitude.

For being Rahul Dravid.