Cricket: An Unassuming Man Called Rahul

Rahul Sharad Dravid. 

'The Wall', as he is known, is the most underrated batsman in the world. Naive cricket "fans," who prefer entertainment to actual cricket, think of him as 'boring' and someone who makes them doze off, because of his traditional, rock solid defensive batting technique.

How mistaken they are!

Few people believed in him when he made his international cricket debut in 1996.
14 years later, he stood in Centurion, with 12,000 Test runs and a dozen other milestones to his name.

The next day, however, every single newspaper in India only chose to speak about Sachin Tendulkar’s ton, how he missed his father still, how he went for coaching to Shivaji Park, and a hundred other anecdotes that every Tendulkar lover knows by heart.

The second-highest run-scorer in Tests, the man who would arguably have been India’s greatest batsman if not for the boy the whole country was busy lauding, did not even have a mention. Dravid’s greatness, however, is not limited to his runs. It is a potpourri of character, hard work and a genuinely good heart.

A month earlier, the two same men stood at either end of the pitch, two runs away from sealing a 2-0 scoreline against the visiting Australians.

For years, the single largest complaint against Tendulkar, unfair as it is, has been his apparent inability to be there at the end and take India to victory. An over before, we were all glued to our sets and wondered whether he would finish it off with a six to silence his detractors, if he would uproot a stump and run with it like a child when we won, and a million other things.

But now, Dravid was on strike and would, of course, finish it off himself. Just like he did seven years back in Adelaide, hitting that trademark square-cut boundary to give India their first victory in Australia in 22 years.

But we all want Tendulkar to do everything, don’t we? As we sat there watching Mitchell Johnson bowl to Rahul, we prayed he leave every ball alone and strangely, he did. The next over Tendulkar won the match for India, took off his helmet, raised both his hands to exult with uncharacteristic emotion, and smiled.

We will never know if Dravid did this intentionally, letting his more-celebrated team mate have his moment, but it is a tribute to his character and image that we are inclined to believe so. If intentional, it was a selfless act by a man who has been renowned for the same (remember donning the keeper’s gloves so that India could play both Yuvraj Singh and Mohammad Kaif?), and it was shameful on our part for wanting Tendulkar to score those runs.

One day, Dravid will retire, taking away with him a bit of what is left of the gentlemanly spirit that the game still tries to portray as its unique element. With "The Wall" will also go that beautiful square cut that we have loved to see all these years.

When Dravid retires, the nation (the world, arguably) will lose the greatest No.3 to have ever graced it, and writers will mourn that the media never gave him his due.

But don’t blame the media, for grace will never overcome the charms of boyish appeal or even spitting fire, traits his best mates Tendulkar and Sourav Ganguly so regularly exhibited in that enviable Indian middle order.

But when Dravid retires, that middle order and also the Indian XI will lose its most handsome face, something that we all wrongly assumed was handed over by God, but in truth, which came about by the virtues he imbibed in his soul as he grew up.

Rahul Dravid is my favourite batsman, and always will be. He never gets the credit he deserves, but he couldn't care less.

The patient, humble genius that he is, he lets his willow do the talking. To me, he will always have a higher place on the pedestal than all the 'Gods' of Indian Cricket.

Let me leave you with this quote: ''When the doors of the temple are closed, even the Gods are behind 'The Wall'".

Please note that this is more of a tribute article, and I've taken a few lines from a blog on Cricinfo.com. I really needed the world to know what Dravid means to me, and the few lines that I've borrowed are a perfect tribute to Dravid, hence I've not changed them. You can read that article here.