Last week there was an award function organised by BCCI felicitating the World Champs…
And once or twice the camera was flashed on to dravid sitting there in the oblivion… and I felt a tinge of sadness…
I don’t know what he was doing there… Either he should have been on the dais rejoicing or at home with family shunning everything… But being he couldn’t have been at any other place…
wondering, puzzled as what mistake did he do to get this…
I am bhakt of Sachin the god… but one sportsman which I adore and whom I can feel very close is dravid… the wall… and its more to do with his attitude… his qualities and character… And I guess these qualities have only done him in…
12000+ runs in Test Matches… 31 centuries… 10000+ runs in ODI 12 centuries… 200 Catches in Tests… 196 in ODI… 14 Stumpings too !! (Courtesy: espncricinfo)
A food for thought… Tell me one memorable innings which you remember of Dravid…. With Sachin we can tag so many innings sharjah, Chennai, perth etc… with sehwag we remember the multan… ganguly has the lord’s…VVS has Kolkata and the aussies…Yuvi the six sixes and Nairobi…
But for dravid ? Tell me one such innings of dravid… Even after such a prolific record still we can’t remember one inning ?
I guess nobody remembers…Even I don’t…
Even the Kolkata match against aussies is remembered for VVS innings…dravid scored 180…
Somewhere I feel he always played in the background… We saw him… and we didn't... We didn’t acknowledge his efforts… While praising the flamboyance of sehwags , gangulys we did not praised enough the resilience and grit of dravid… We gave him the tag of Wall when our pants were saved… and then conveniently let it go…
And he kept on being dravid…The problem with being this was he had to be always a dravid... as there were Sachins and sehwags in the team...and even a ganguly…
When likes of Sachin and sehwag played, he had to play like dravid supporting them, running around and when they didn’t click he had to play more like dravid to save the team from shames of defeat..
Not once could he say to hell with the team let me play some shots… As the saying “love your job not your company…” … same had to be with the team…
“love your work.... not your team because you never know when your team starts tagging you and taking your work for granted”…
never adjust too much for the team… excel in your own department… u are not Mr fixit… and let the fixes be done by specialists… Because in this way only, you can serve and help your team better…this quality has to be learnt from sachin himself… No matter how explosive openers came he never left his opening slot in one-dayers(for a very short period he did)… and no matter how hopelessly – hopeless openers came he never left his 4th slot in test matches… Because here lies the key… when you start compromising and adjusting, you start tampering with your strong points… and efforts get diverted in trying to improve in areas where you are not so good… and after initial acknowledgement/gratitude for the change, your team members start expecting and take things for granted… then dravid being wicket-keeper is expected to take all the catches… stumpings… and had to bat like dravid too… and then if he faltered a bit he would be pushed down the order reason being his wicket-keeping…. because for top-order slots everyone was ready…but for odd jobs, no-takers!!
So dravid hopped behind the stumps in his pads and his position hopped from 3 to 4 to 6 to out-of-the team…The biggest mistake dravid’s character has was of being submissive and not being assertive when it mattered.… He never asserted to the world, the fact that he was doing a favour by becoming a make-shift wicket-keeper... He never asserted through actions that he was among st the best world had seen… He accepted things as they came... and everyone else did… He forgot the fact that you have to stand up for yourself as no one else will, even when everyone else might be feeling the same ...
He always remained true to his name... “The Wall”… Always supporting, always listening to everything, to keep on saving the day for others and never retaliated nor put his foot down…
He took the blows and bowed… and no one did notice it… and no one cared...
When ganguly is dropped after years of hapless performances there is a lot of hue and cry but what's wrong with dravid??? He has been by far the most successful batsman after the "master" himself… then why not shed a single tear when he is not included?
Why he goes out silently without anyone's notice and sit out there... Even the camera hovered over him just twice !!!
