Rahul Dravid explains why he chose cricket over hockey

Rahul Dravid scored 48 centuries at the International stage, but had his days of dreaming of playing hockey for India too

Who would have thought that renowned former Indian batsman Rahul Dravid had once considered hockey as his first choice of sport in the early stages of his life! The Wall revealed that he was into playing hockey over cricket at the time when he was in school, and soon realised that he was not fit for the sport after his school coach relegated him from centre-half to right-half position.

The former Indian captain was present at the launch function of Hockey Karnataka’s Bengaluru Cup where he was one of the guests of honour along with former swimming ace Nisha Millet.

Mr. Dependable Dravid recalled his playing days with his friend and now the former Indian women’s team coach Sandeep Somesh at the time they were used to play for their school team. He recalled, “Sandeep (Somesh) and I studied in St Joseph’s and both used to play hockey together”, as Deccan Herald reports.

My hockey coach wanted me to run the game: Dravid

Dravid recollected his old memories and said that the then school team coach Mr. Shivprakash asked Dravid to play at the centre-half position and to control the flow of the game.

He said, “Sandeep was a year senior to me. When I was playing at the junior level, our coach Mr Shivprakash always asked me to play as a centre-half. He wanted me to control the game. He used to tell me that the team depended on me and I had to create the chances. He wanted me to run the game.”

However, the twist came when Rahul graduated to the senior level and noticed that his old friend Sandeep Somesh had taken the centre-half position and was controlling the flow of the game. The coach backed the decision to play Somesh in place of Dravid at the centre-half position. Soon the little Jimmy understood that hockey is not the sport for him and there was cricket for him to excel in.

Lucky to have got cricket: Dravid

He added, “As I graduated from the junior to the senior level, I noticed that Sandeep was the centre-half for the senior side. Sandeep quickly relegated me to right-half where I couldn’t do much of a damage! (Shivprakash) then told me ‘Look, don’t get in the way of Sandeep. Just let him run the game.

“So it became very clear to me, and rather quickly, that hockey was not going to be my game and I was lucky to have got cricket.”

However, we all know now what followed afterwards was not any less than a fairytale story. Dravid went on to play over 500 International matches for his nation and scored more than 24000 runs in his career spanning over 16 years.