Is Kane Williamson the modern day Dravid?

[Gollum]

16 minutes ago, sandeep said:

Dayum that's quite a write-up.  Tell me Gollu bhai, was Dravid dropped ever from the Indian ODI team?  If so, when?  And for how long? 

How is that related to what we are discussing here? I don't remember every detail of his early career, he may have been dropped a few times in the late 90s. He was finally dropped for good in 2007, made a few sporadic appearances here and there till he bowed out in 2011 Eng. I was happy when he lost his place in 2007 because he couldn't adapt to changing times. Till then IMHO he played because he earned a spot in the XI, he was never our best batsman in the mid 2000s but never the weakest link either. 

[sandeep]

12 minutes ago, Gollum said:

How is that related to what we are discussing here? I don't remember every detail of his early career, he may have been dropped a few times in the late 90s. He was finally dropped for good in 2007, made a few sporadic appearances here and there till he bowed out in 2011 Eng. I was happy when he lost his place in 2007 because he couldn't adapt to changing times. Till then IMHO he played because he earned a spot in the XI, he was never our best batsman in the mid 2000s but never the weakest link either. 

I asked you that because you put together quite an elaborate essay filled with selective stats slicing to present Dravid the ODI bat in the best possible light. Nothing wrong with that, but that doesn't tell the whole story when it comes to his ODI career. 

 

 

[rahulrulezz]

1 hour ago, Gollum said:

Frankly this is a low quality post coming from you because you are a sensible poster who generally makes good posts.

 

Nobody's underselling Dravid the ODI batsman- really? These were the exact words to which I responded to "Kane is 100 times better player than Dravid in 50 overs and 20 overs format"......I know this was figure of speech and he didn't mean it  literally. But is KW really that much better than Dravid as an ODI batsman? Kane isn't King Viv and RD isn't an Amay Khurasia or Kanitkar that one can make such a sweeping statement.

 

Regarding Dravid's SR I had never verified it myself before but based on hunch found it a bit unrealistic to believe that it was in the 50s and 60s...so checked it out myself.HERE

Till the end of Dec 2002 he was striking at 69.28...so clearly closer to 70 than 50 or 60. Sachin was a marvel at that time so won't bring him into this discussion (his competition was clearly higher level like Viv, Lara). But RD's SR was comparable to that of Sidhu and Jadeja, 2 other important batsmen for us in the late 90s. Azhar's was higher and so was Dada's...both had SR in the 73-74 range. 

 

Dravid never had a limited scoring game, he had all the shots...just the mindset (intent) was lacking when he 1st came circa 1996. He improved that area in the coming years and peaked by 1999. In 1999 WC he was top scorer: 461 runs in 8 matches, average 65.8, SR 85.5. He had better returns (both avg and SR) than Steve Waugh, Dada, Anwar, Mark Waugh, Ponting, Gibbs, Bevan, Inzi, Kirsten, Gilly etc. He had a lower SR than SRT (90) but anyone who saw that edition would rate RD as our standout batsman. Only Klusener had a better WC than him because of sheer impact. 1999 WC BATTING

 

Here are the names of players who topped the batting charts in World Cups

1975: Glenn Turner

1979: Greenidge

1983: Gower

1987: Gooch

1992: Crowe

1996: SRT

1999: Dravid

2003: SRT

2007: Hayden

2011: Dilshan

2015: Guptill

 

Dunno about you but pretty exalted company I'd say, Dravid also happens to be the only player apart from 'You Know Who' representing India on that list. Not bad for someone 100 times worse than Williamson,eh? He also did well in the 2000 and 2002 editions of ICC CT/Mini WC averaging over 50 both times. 

 

Coming to 2003 WC yes he played as keeper? But unless you get your sources from some gossip site or India TV he was made to keep gloves to bolster our batting and give better balance, not because he couldn't fit in otherwise. The only reason he was given gloves and not SRT/Dada/Viru/UV was because they were better part timers and RD wasn't exactly a novice in the art of keeping. 'The Hindu' is an outlet that doesn't sensationalize stuff so here's an article from that time around. 

To don the gloves or not is Dravid's predicament

LINK

Here's an interview of Dravid where he admits that this idea was floated by the management to counter teams like Aus, SA, Zim etc who had good keeper batsmen. Besides other teams had good A/Rs (Flintoff, Cairns, Kallis, Razzaq) and India didn't have one on the horizon. INTERVIEW

 

Nayan Mongia had retired in 2000 and the likes of MSK Prasad/Dighe/Dahiya/Ratra/Dasgupta etc were never going to be good enough. Dravid had to make a sacrifice for his team by donning gloves and not the other way as you believe. By accommodating him as keeper India could also play a quasi A/R like Dinesh Mongia. 

 

Now coming to his role as keeper batsman, he became full time keeper in the 2002 away ODI series in WI (almost a year before the WC). Before that one we had a Zim home series (Marillier wallah) where Ratra was keeper and had a stinker. BTW Ratra's record reads: avg 13, SR 71......imagine him in place of RD in WC 2003 !!! 

 

So RD kept wickets in all ODI matches from then on till 2003 WC, selectors simply didn't pluck him out of thin air a day before WC selection. In fact he also kept wickets in the 2002 CT, so 2003 wasn't his 1st venture as keeper in a major tournament.

 

So again I had to check if RD warranted a place in the side when the squad for 2003 WC was selected. WC started on Feb 9, 2003 so I am assuming they chose the squad by Dec 31, 2002. RANKING

Surprise surprise, RD was the 19th ranked player and 4th best from India behind SRT, Dada and Viru. in fact you can play around with the dates, you will always find RD as our 3rd-4th best batsman in 2002. 

So 1 month before selection, here are the rankings of other batsmen who were in the squad in 2003 WC:

UV (38)

Kaif (53)

Dinesh Mongia (65)

 

Now I have the highest regards for young UV but difficult to convince me that Kaif/Dinesh Mongia or some domestic player worse than these 2 could have been better options than Dravid. Your words- 'he had to keep wickets because that was the only way he was staying in the ODI XI'. Please come up names of domestic batsmen who Dravid was blocking. Let me make your job easier, HERE is the complete list of our ODI players ranked in the order of date of debut. Please sift through them and name me the person who would have played the WC in case RD refused to be keeper? Or in case you believe there was some ratna hidden in domestic cricket who could never wear India ODI jersey because of Dravid in the 2002-03 period you can add his name and I will look at it objectively. 

 

All in all  thankfully RD didn't make a fool out of himself in that WC else there would have been statements here like Manish Pandey is 1000000 times better than RD as an ODI batsman .

 

 

You wrote a pretty good and long post so I had to reply to this. I take my words back, he wasn’t bad as I said.

 

You are right, he was a good player and  prolly deserved to play for India. I have my own personal bias against players who play with low stroke rates and absolutely hated Dravid for playing with super low strike rate. I hated him and his style of batting so much in LOIs, that i ignore his various valuable innings. Your stats show that he played a key role in 99wcup, and specially against Pakistan, and in itself deserves a credit. 

[Gollum]

6 minutes ago, rahulrulezz said:

You wrote a pretty good and long post so I had to reply to this. I take my words back, he wasn’t bad as I said.

 

You are right, he was a good player and  prolly deserved to play for India. I have my own personal bias against players who play with low stroke rates and absolutely hated Dravid for playing with super low strike rate. I hated him and his style of batting so much in LOIs, that i ignore his various valuable innings. Your stats show that he played a key role in 99wcup, and specially against Pakistan, and in itself deserves a credit. 

Yeah man we all have our biases, we need to sometimes re evaluate our preconceived notions and analyze stuff from a different angle. You being such a keen student of history will surely understand what I am trying to say. 

 

Regarding SR I think Dravid's test career and initial foray in ODI cricket (1996-98) may cloud the judgement of fans. Even commentators and experts may have unknowingly built up the image of Dravid being a slowcoach. Example some actors are typecast by audience/critics in a certain way and it may take lots of effort/time for the actor to break shackles from the stereotype. 

 

RD's ODI SR was 71.24 while Dada's SR was 73.71. Yet in the minds of most fans Dada was an aggressive shotmaker while Dravid was the tuk tuk guy.  This is also similar to the Ponting-SRT comparison, in the minds of most fans the Aussie is the attacking maverick while Sachin is more watchful...yet Ponting's SR is 80.39 and SRT's is 86.24. 

[kohli]

Dravid odi avg and sr was comparable to  other best batsman on that time.his avg similar to inzi lara ganguly and other.some people claiming Dravid kept wk bcz this only way to stay in team. We had kaif ,mongiya badani. Laxmam type middle order batsman that time.even atg yuvraj average was below 30 on that period

[kohli]

People caling ganguly and jadeja is atg odi batsman,look both sr 

Ganguly career sr 73 and jadeja sr 69 yes 69,below 70.

[sarcastic]

44 minutes ago, Gollum said:

 Yeah man we all have our biases, we need to sometimes re evaluate our preconceived notions and analyze stuff from a different angle. You being such a keen student of history will surely understand what I am trying to say. 

 

Regarding SR I think Dravid's test career and initial foray in ODI cricket (1996-98) may cloud the judgement of fans. Even commentators and experts may have unknowingly built up the image of Dravid being a slowcoach. Example some actors are typecast by audience/critics in a certain way and it may take lots of effort/time for the actor to break shackles from the stereotype. 

 

RD's ODI SR was 71.24 while Dada's SR was 73.71. Yet in the minds of most fans Dada was an aggressive shotmaker while Dravid was the tuk tuk guy.  This is also similar to the Ponting-SRT comparison, in the minds of most fans the Aussie is the attacking maverick while Sachin is more watchful...yet Ponting's SR is 80.39 and SRT's is 86.24. 

@Gollumji, I don't think ppl are underrating the abilities of Rahul Dravid. But we cannot ignore the fact that his intent was simply not there.

If we recollect, a very important test match (n series) that we won because of Rahul Dravid type of batting (i.e. I m not talking about his various high points home or in England/Aus ) is the Jamaican test match. (You won't believe that while I just looked at the bookmarks in my Chrome browser today, I see that link there. ) I will call that Rahul Dravid's test match. There is no one else who could have won that other than him. 

 

However, I remember at least one ( if not two) test match(es) where we could have won but settled for an unnecessary draw. If the situation really demanded it, it is fine. But there were instances where such as them where I felt that his overly defensive attitude has costed in reaping more victories. He lacked the ruthlessness we see in many other Indian stars in winning more matches. That could have affected his ODI batting too. But the purple era from 2002-2006, he was as valuable as any other ODI batsman. No doubt about that....

Edited May 18, 2018 by sarcastic

[sandeep]

1 hour ago, Gollum said:

RD's ODI SR was 71.24 while Dada's SR was 73.71. Yet in the minds of most fans Dada was an aggressive shotmaker while Dravid was the tuk tuk guy.

I have always railed against Dada's slow-poky batting.  To the extent that I criticize Rohit sharma for his Ganguly-esque starts - both of them ate a lot of dot balls during the initial powerplay, and relied heavily on boundaries to shore up their scoring rate.  The thing is, as bad as Ganguly was, Dravid was worse in the 90s. 

 

To Dravid's credit however, he really raised his ODI game from 2003 onwards, and ended up being much better as an ODI bat.  Dada couldn't really manage that, but had a far better streak during the 2nd half of the 1990s.  That's when Gangu was in his pomp as an ODI bat, and relative to that era, his SR was respectable.  And even relative to that era, Dravid's was not.  

 

 

[sandeep]

3 hours ago, master22 said:

Lol thats rubbish. Just watch the below video, Ganguly himself said there was no question about Dravid's place in the ODI side. I guess you know more than Ganguly himself.  

 

 

If there was "no question" about Dravid's place, why was he ever dropped from the ODI team?

 

 

[Brainfade]

3 hours ago, gattaca said:

Jeff  boycott in Sharjah complaining how Dravid just couldn’t hit through the gaps.

Geoff Boycott complaining that Dravid couldn't score fast is like Vijay Mallya complaining about someone defrauding a bank. Dumbass Boycott's batting was the perfect cure for insomnia

[rkt.india]

4 hours ago, sandeep said:

Dayum that's quite a write-up.  Tell me Gollu bhai, was Dravid dropped ever from the Indian ODI team?  If so, when?  And for how long? 

Even Kohli got dropped from ODIs. Your point?

[rkt.india]

43 minutes ago, sandeep said:

I have always railed against Dada's slow-poky batting.  To the extent that I criticize Rohit sharma for his Ganguly-esque starts - both of them ate a lot of dot balls during the initial powerplay, and relied heavily on boundaries to shore up their scoring rate.  The thing is, as bad as Ganguly was, Dravid was worse in the 90s. 

 

To Dravid's credit however, he really raised his ODI game from 2003 onwards, and ended up being much better as an ODI bat.  Dada couldn't really manage that, but had a far better streak during the 2nd half of the 1990s.  That's when Gangu was in his pomp as an ODI bat, and relative to that era, his SR was respectable.  And even relative to that era, Dravid's was not.  

 

 

David's batting in ODI changed from 1999 NZ tour where he scored 123 in one of the ODIs.

[gattaca]

6 minutes ago, Brainfade said:

Geoff Boycott complaining that Dravid couldn't score fast is like Vijay Mallya complaining about someone defrauding a bank. Dumbass Boycott's batting was the perfect cure for insomnia

Not denying he was boring he was talking in a modern context at that time.Funny thing was Pakistan hired him as coach.

 

If Geoffrey had played cricket the way he talked he would have had people queuing up to get into the ground instead of queuing up to leave.^[161]

– Fred Trueman on Boycott's commentating career in 1993

Edited May 18, 2018 by gattaca

[Jimmy Cliff]

A pretty good article on Dravid's evolution as an ODI batsman.

[Temujin Khaghan]

Even our rahane and pujara seem like good blokes but they don't have the stature to be compared with the top4 best young batsmen of the world today..

Edited May 18, 2018 by Temujin Khaghan

[Temujin Khaghan]

What about Joe root?

 

He seems like a nice guy like kane...

When smith got caught he did not make any snide remarks and instead showed compassion. Someone like Ricky pointing wouldn't have let that opportunity go waste especially against an opposition captain who has defeated his team in a test series...

Edited May 18, 2018 by Temujin Khaghan

[Temujin Khaghan]

Before dravid became a proper odi bat, his odi innings were painful and excruciating to watch. 50(90), 60(100) kind of innings were his usual good outings.

Edited May 18, 2018 by Temujin Khaghan

[Lannister]

10 hours ago, jusarrived said:

 

Dravid would have been playing like this more often now , may be with a heavier bat and with few more more shots like reverse sweep or a switch hit added to his repotrie this innings was no different from KLR's 12 ball 50 .

Thanks for the video, such fond memories of his batting style. He definitely had a wide range of shots but for some reason he limited himself. I would have loved to see Dravid play in this era, he would've been perfect to bat at number 4 in ODIs, eclipsing Rahane. 

[Lala]

Williamson is far better than Dravid . Moreover williamson has power hitting (6 hitting) ability where dravid never had.

[Gollum]

10 hours ago, sarcastic said:

@Gollumji, I don't think ppl are underrating the abilities of Rahul Dravid. But we cannot ignore the fact that his intent was simply not there.

If we recollect, a very important test match (n series) that we won because of Rahul Dravid type of batting (i.e. I m not talking about his various high points home or in England/Aus ) is the Jamaican test match. (You won't believe that while I just looked at the bookmarks in my Chrome browser today, I see that link there. ) I will call that Rahul Dravid's test match. There is no one else who could have won that other than him. 

 

However, I remember at least one ( if not two) test match(es) where we could have won but settled for an unnecessary draw. If the situation really demanded it, it is fine. But there were instances where such as them where I felt that his overly defensive attitude has costed in reaping more victories. He lacked the ruthlessness we see in many other Indian stars in winning more matches. That could have affected his ODI batting too. But the purple era from 2002-2006, he was as valuable as any other ODI batsman. No doubt about that....

'His intent was simply not there' ...this is exactly the type of overblown generalization I am against. He was the engine behind our test victories in the 2001-2006 period, no Indian batsman not even Sachin had such a streak in his career where he was churning out so many match winning knocks...not just Sabina Park, his 2001 Eden 180, 2002 England series, 2003-04 Australia, 2004 Rawalpindi, twin 100s against Pak in 2005 Eden....a few glimpses of his masterclasses where he showed intent. IMO as far as test cricket is concerned intent should also cover challenging phases where the batsmen has to play out long intervals of time without quitting...a Sehwag may score a flashy 15 and throw away his wicket on a green top while Dravid may play whole day and shield the rest of the team from the brutal conditions a la Headingley 2002. 'He lacked ruthlessness we see in many other Indian stars in winning more matches'....I simply don't agree with this statement as far as test cricket is concerned and I don't think SRT, Dada or Laxman were better than him in this department. In a career of 16 years ofc you will find 1-2 instances where overly defensive attitude cost us wins, and here Dravid isn't an exception. I can even point out many SRT innings where he went into a shell needlessly and affected his team negatively, 2007 Cape Town where he treated Paul Harris as some God or even Bangalore 2005 where he played like a coward in trying to save the test match against  Pak ultimately perishing to Sami. More than Dravid I can give examples of SRT who via his needless stonewalling all of a sudden  surrendered our momentum to the opponents, indeed the biggest such culprit considering his talent and shotmaking abilities.  I am not taking aim at SRT who also happens to be my favorite, just pointing out the lazy stereotyping of Dravid's career. Again his ODI purple patch started in 1999, 1999-2006 should be the correct time frame....remember no ordinary batsman can top the scoring charts of a WC that too with such an impressive SR-Avg combo. RD owned all the great batting stars of the 90s in that WC and that is something frequently overlooked by fans. 

 

Edited May 18, 2018 by Gollum