June 1996. It was the second Test of the 3 match series in which two batsmen made their debut. While one of them -Sourav Ganguly- went on to make century before being bowled by an Allan Mullaly delivery, the other one was unlucky to get out on 95 getting caught behind off Chris Lewis. While Sourav Ganguly's innings was celebrated, not many take a note a not of Rahul Dravid's slow innings (strike rate of 35.58) which had no out of box shots or any power hits. It was plain copy book style of cricket that the young man played.Both these players went on to become two of the most reliable batsmen of Indian cricket and even went on to captain the side. However, while the likes of Sourav Ganguly and Sachin Tendulkar enjoyed being in limelight more often than not, it was Rahul Dravid who was India's man in crisis. Rahul Dravid was a master of playing every shot in the book. He was a complete team man and had gained immense respect even from the rivals through his skill and selflessness.
Dravid always played under the shadow of fellow greats like Sachin Tendulkar and Sourav Ganguly. He showed his team-mates how to bat in the difficult conditions overseas. He went to score 24208 International runs with 48 centuries and 146 fifties which shows his consistency. Though Rahul was better known for his defensive style of batting, he developed the skill of playing power shots at the later part of his ODI career which included fearsome square drives and shots over the mid off boundary.
His selflessness can be judged by the fact that whenever his team needed to step up for a job, he was the man. He did all, batted 1 down, opened the innings, batted lower down the order and scored quick runs, stitched long partnerships, kept wickets in absence of a regular wicket-keeper in the team and even rolled his arm over when needed.
His career has hardly had any dark spot apart from an allegation of ball tampering which was hard to believe for many (it is believed that he unknowingly rubbed chewing gum on the ball during a match). He also holds the highest number of catches in test matches. Despite being immensely talented, he has always been low profile even when he was the captain of national team. As a captain, he lead the side to series victories in England and the West Indies for the first time in a generation.
In the age of T20 and IPL, where a batsman is expected to make changes in his style and go for rash shots, Dravid showed how to score runs thick and fast by playing textbook cricket. He has the record of second fastest fifty in ODIs for India. Dravid was well known for his concentration and ability of play for long hours and to stitch huge partnerships. The fact that he is involved in 88 century partnerships and 126 half century partnerships which included 32039 runs shows how good he was when it came to staying at the wicket.
One of the finest knocks by Rahul came in 2001 in Kolkata when India were following on against world champions Australia when he not only scored a century and stitched a huge partnership with VVS Laxman, he ensured that India comes into a position of winning the game and ending the record winning streak of Australia out of nowhere. Just when it seemed his best was over, Dravid showed his class once again on the tour to England in 2011 in a series in which India were completely outplayed and Dravid went on to score 461 runs, by far the highest by any batsman from his team, including three hundreds, two of which he got while opening the innings.
Rahul Dravid has always been a trying to learn the game even in the last phase of his career when he had nothing to prove. Now that Rahul or the Wall, as he is known amongst the cricket lovers and players, has retired, it will be very difficult to find a player who can fill in his big shoes. There might be a stop gap or a temporary solution for it but the vacuum that Rahul's retirement has left behind will take a lot of time to be filled.
Rahul, the Mr. Reliable and a great student of the game who showed that it is possible to make it big even without trying anything fancy will be missed a lot to one and every cricket lover for he is one of the finest cricketers that the game has ever seen. Miss you Jammy!
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