Seven things to learn from Rahul Dravid

Not to lose head for things go wrong!

Rahul Dravid, in his career, faced the axe from selectors few times from ODI squad - first of them was in 1998 during his early years in International career, the reason being his slow strike rate!

He had to work on few technical aspects of his batting in order to keep rotating the strike and to improve the scoring rate. He worked diligently to make slight corrections to his batting style, to suit shorter version of the game.

The effort bore fruits as he was successful to make a come back to ODI team in early 1999. That year itself, he scored 1761 runs in 43 matches with the help of six centuries. In the World Cup held in the same year, he even emerged as the highest run-getter in the tournament. He eventually became a vital cog in Indian 50-Over team till late 2007.

In 2007, a poor series at home against Australia made him sit out of the ODI team. The World Cup debacle in Caribbean islands, and the arrival of promising youngsters who won the inaugural World Twenty20, both happenins in the same year itself, made the case stronger against The Wall.

Dravid seemed to accept the fact that his removal from 50-over team was more about giving chance to youngsters than his form or technique. He was picked again couple of times - first in 2009 and then in 2011 but they were done considering specific series'. He was denied the chance to play in World Cup 2011.

The veteran, though disappointed, didn't utter a single word about his ouster from the team in shorter format. Instead of losing sleep over his removal, he chose to focus on his Test batting where he was still in reckoning.

Learning Takeaway - In any profession, setbacks may happen to anyone because of the decisions not in his/her control. If a setback is because of something a person is lacking, then he/she should work hard to overcome that. Otherwise if something is beyond his/her control then it is better to move on instead of losing sleep over those setbacks.