Top 10 Matchwinners for India with the bat

[Brainfade]

you are right about Dravid giving the other guys an option to play freely but that does not make him the best Indian test player ever. He has not done it frequently enough when there were no partners. Also' date=' in todays game, its debatable whether Sachin or Ganguly would not have provided Sehwag the support Dravid did. BTW Sachin has grinded it out umpteenth times when out of form, only to be called a selfish player who plays for records and his place in the team for a strike rate which was far far better than Dravid's on Day 3![/quote'] I have to agree about SRT grinding it out. I should have been more specific when I said "would the others grind it out?" I was thinking specifically of Sehwag and Ganguly. My memory fades, but one of his doubles was a classic grind-it-out (248?). Dravid is not the "best Indian test player ever." He is certainly in the top 5 along with SRT, SMG, Kapil and AK. If I were to pencil in an all-time India XI, he would be the 3rd one - after SRT and SMG. And anyone who accuses SRT of being selfish needs to get their heads examined.

[CSK Fan]

I have to agree about SRT grinding it out. I should have been more specific when I said "would the others grind it out?" I was thinking specifically of Sehwag and Ganguly. My memory fades' date=' but one of his doubles was a classic grind-it-out (248?). [b'] Dravid is not the "best Indian test player ever." He is certainly in the top 5 along with SRT, SMG, Kapil and AK. If I were to pencil in an all-time India XI, he would be the 3rd one - after SRT and SMG. And anyone who accuses SRT of being selfish needs to get their heads examined.

That I agree to. Well, you are right, Sehwag cannot grind it out but Dravid cant up the tempo most times when needed to either.

[Gambit]

As I said yesterday, Dravid is the kind of bat who feeds off the person batting with him. He lets them take the initiative and holds one end up. Very rarely do you see Dravid taking the attack to the opposition when everyone is falling around him nor do you see him regularly dominate a partnership with a top order bat. Therein lies his greatest strength and his greatest weakness.Every team needs a Dravid but a Dravid alone cannot win you games. An enforcer is needed. You need a sword to go with the shield.

[CSK Fan]

As I said yesterday' date=' Dravid is the kind of bat who feeds off the person batting with him. He lets them take the initiative and holds one end up. Very rarely do you see Dravid taking the attack to the opposition when everyone is falling around him nor do you see him regularly dominate a partnership with a top order bat. Therein lies his greatest strength and his greatest weakness.Every team needs a Dravid but a Dravid alone cannot win you games. An enforcer is needed. You need a sword to go with the shield.[/quote'] And that is exactly why I wouldnt count him above Sachin

[riya]

Rahul Dravid is the reason we won many away home tests ,now people tell that he has difficulty in changing batting gears .Wow fantastic .Any one remember Rawalpind 2004 .

[Dhondy]

As I said yesterday' date=' Dravid is the kind of bat who feeds off the person batting with him. He lets them take the initiative and holds one end up. Very rarely do you see Dravid taking the attack to the opposition when everyone is falling around him nor do you see him regularly dominate a partnership with a top order bat. Therein lies his greatest strength and his greatest weakness.Every team needs a Dravid but a Dravid alone cannot win you games. An enforcer is needed. You need a sword to go with the shield.[/quote'] Headingley 2002? Sachin may have scored more, but Rahul set it up. Adelaide 2003? Double and a 72*. Rawalpindi 2004? His highest ever- 270. Kingston 2006? Two 80-odds on a minefield. Perth 2007. The 93 on the bounciest pitch in the world, a score nobody could replicate. That's 5 matches just off the top of my head.

[fineleg]

Dravid > SRT in Tests. SRT >>> Dravid in ODIs

[veer]

statistics dont do justice to questions like who hit the most winning knocks..

[Dhondy]

Human beings are fallible in that they are wired to take the most recent events into account when arriving at a judgement. As new memories form, some older ones are crowded out, many synapses broken. Thus, players rise and fall in the reckoning of fans. Sehwag, today's hero, will become the subject of tomorrow's abuse, when he flops. Similarly, the greatest away performer India has ever seen also loses fans on the back of his lean patch, but the evidence is there for all to see. That's 5 matches he's won for his side, three of them almost singlehandedly. Without Rahul Dravid, India would have never entered her golden edge. People may now term him a dour blocker, but I can never forget his batting in that 2003 Australian series and the Pakistan tour that followed. He made some of the best batsmen in the world look stodgy and uncertain in comparison.

[fineleg]

Human beings are fallible in that they are wired to take the most recent events into account when arriving at a judgement. As new memories form, some older ones are crowded out, many synapses broken. Thus, players rise and fall in the reckoning of fans. Sehwag, today's hero, will become the subject of tomorrow's abuse, when he flops. Similarly, the greatest away performer India has ever seen also loses fans on the back of his lean patch, but the evidence is there for all to see. That's 5 matches he's won for his side, three of them almost singlehandedly. Without Rahul Dravid, India would have never entered her golden edge. People may now term him a dour blocker, but I can never forget his batting in that 2003 Australian series and the Pakistan tour that followed. He made some of the best batsmen in the world look stodgy and uncertain in comparison.

That 2003-2004 tour was something! Adelaide is one of the best Tests and RD ensured the 2nd Inn chase was also completed without problems :two_thumbs_up: Cannot forget the knock with VVS in Calcutta as well.

[Laaloo]

its a shame we only had the agarkars and the mohantys to supports dada, sachin, dravid, and laxman otherwise we would have won alot more series home and away including overseas IMO

[fineleg]

Yes, the peak age, peaktime of SRT, SG, RD and VVS combined with a bowling group like Ishant Sharma, RPS, SS, ZK and Kumble would have won us many Tests.

[Gambit]

Dhondy, you didn't get my point. Dravid hardly ever took the attack to the bowlers. Sure, there are a handful knocks but that is it. He does his thing i.e holding one end up and it's almost always the partner at the other end who attacks. He is great at building partnerships. That is why you hardly see a Dravid 100 when the entire top order has collapsed. He usually either gets second last 60-70 odd or is 60* not out. He will survive the tough conditions as others fall but not go after the bowling. That's just not his way. It just isn't in Dravid's game to play(blaze when the deck is burning) knocks like these. http://content-uk.cricinfo.com/ci/engine/match/63567.html http://content-uk.cricinfo.com/ci/engine/match/63713.html http://content-uk.cricinfo.com/ci/engine/match/63587.html RD just isn't an enforcer.

[Cricketics]

^gambit, u can say the other way around.. for an enforcer to go and slam down the opposition bowlers, he needz person on the other ned to hold things and make sure the team doesn't collapse.. thats where R.D had emerged as a leader.. u see for every knock there is a knock of some other guy which helps him reach the peak.. say for Laxman 281.. THERE Is Dravid's 180... for tendulkar 186.. there is another great Dravid ton.. u just can't deny giving credit to this guy.. such an essential player for the country...

[graphic23]

I am not sure about that Gambit. What about the 233 Adelaide knock. Sure he had Laxman with him but I remember Dravid playing some beautiful shots in that knock (i.e shots that one would consider 'aggressive'). Plus, though you have pointed out to some awesome innings by Sachin, he has only performed in either one innings or the other. Dravid on the other hand made 233 in the first innings and made an unbeaten 72 in the next to take India home. And if you do look at the strike rate against Sachin had against South Africa in the match you pointed out, it was 41.11. This was very early in his career so we can excuse that but since you brought it up, it would be fair to say that they are not far from how Dravid bats now-a-days. Dravid will never make that 169 against SA, the 155 against SA in Bloemfontein, nor will he make the 124* on Day 1 of the Adelaide Test 2008. And if you remember, he had Azhar (111?), Sehwag (101), Laxman (50+) to help him counter-attack. It is a partnership game. But because his style is different doesn't mean he's any lesser of a player. You can, however, expect Dravid to make knocks like Sachin's 241 at Sydney in that 03-04 Australia Tour. I admire Sachin with that innings because he played so restrictively and yet they were unable to get him out very quickly. He made a plan and carried it out rather efficiently. But Dravid just supported a 300+ innings and also carried onto the next day, so I wouldn't put him any lesser than Sachin, and infact, I'd say that Dravid > Sachin in Test matches won or saved.

[Gambit]

^gambit' date= u can say the other way around.. for an enforcer to go and slam down the opposition bowlers, he needz person on the other ned to hold things and make sure the team doesn't collapse.. thats where R.D had emerged as a leader..

I said that in this very thread

Every team needs a Dravid but a Dravid alone cannot win you games. An enforcer is needed. You need a sword to go with the shield.

u just can't deny giving credit to this guy.. such an essential player for the country...

I don't think I've denied him any credit. I've just said that he cannot impose himself single handedly on the opposition like a Tendulkar, Lara or a Ponting can.

[Gambit]

I am not sure about that Gambit. What about the 233 Adelaide knock. Sure he had Laxman with him but I remember Dravid playing some beautiful shots in that knock (i.e shots that one would consider 'aggressive'). Plus, though you have pointed out to some awesome innings by Sachin, he has only performed in either one innings or the other. Dravid on the other hand made 233 in the first innings and made an unbeaten 72 in the next to take India home. And if you do look at the strike rate against Sachin had against South Africa in the match you pointed out, it was 41.11. This was very early in his career so we can excuse that but since you brought it up, it would be fair to say that they are not far from how Dravid bats now-a-days. Dravid will never make that 169 against SA, the 155 against SA in Bloemfontein, nor will he make the 124* on Day 1 of the Adelaide Test 2008. But because his style is different doesn't mean he's any lesser of a player. You can, however, expect Dravid to make knocks like Sachin's 241 at Sydney in that 03-04 Australia Tour. I admire Sachin with that innings because he played so restrictively and yet they were unable to get him out very quickly. He made a plan and carried it out rather efficiently. But Dravid just supported a 300+ innings and also carried onto the next day, so I wouldn't put him any lesser than Sachin, and infact, I'd say that Dravid > Sachin in Test matches won or saved.

Dravid's 'different' style is exactly why in my mind he is lesser than a Tendulkar, Lara or a Ponting. I tend to rate people who attack in tough pitch and match situations higher than people who graft. But that is just me. Regarding your matches won and saved comment, I'd disagree with that because a lot of Tendulkar's knocks in dire circumstances came when either the batting collapsed around him or the bowling was extremely shoddy. Put Dravid in 90s in place of Tendulkar and you would see his career 100s halved. In fact, a very good example is the BG series of 2004. Tendulkar was out pretty much for the first 2 games and almost not match fit in the third game. Dravid took on the mantle of being the team's best bat and also someone who was expected the dominate the middle order. He just couldn't do it and had a very poor series.

[Cricketics]

well gambit, thing u saying that lara, ponting and tendulkar can hold the oppositon single handedly.... well mate thats all ODI stuff.. i can agree if about ODI.. . IN test I BET, that doesn't happen much.... surely a session.. but not the whole game..

[Lurker]

http://stats.cricinfo.com/statsguru/engine/stats/index.html?class=1;filter=advanced;orderby=batting_average;qualmin1=1000;qualval1=runs;result=1;team=6;template=results;type=batting

Much ado about nothing. Tendulkar scores at 63 in matches won. Big deal!! Thats like a 10% improvement in terms of career average. Dravid has a bigger improvement(30%) while for Sehwag has a lower than career average in matches won. The reason why India has won lies with the bowlers. Starts with Anil Kumble who averages 18 as against career average of 28(a good 68% improvement). Or even Srinath, Zaheer Khan, Harbhajan, Pathan etc etc. All of these gents would show lot more improvement in their bowling than what you see for the batsmen. xxx

[Mr. Wicket]

Dravid's 'different' style is exactly why in my mind he is lesser than a Tendulkar' date=' Lara or a Ponting. I tend to rate people who attack in tough pitch and match situations higher than people who graft. But that is just me.[/quote'] Not necessarily. The thing that set Tendulkar apart from the rest is that he CAN graft and will do so in right situations. He's just got an unbelievable cricketing brain and can figure out when he needs to gut out time, and when to counterattack. And he's capable of doing both based on the situation in tougher conditions. There are plenty of matches where he's decided it's best for the team if he goes on the offense, other times like in that run chase v. Pakistan recently when he went on the defensive for several overs, grinding Shoaib down and negating their only threat on his own. The best comparison though of the two might be in the Mumbai test of 2004. First innings, Dravid figured out how to survive in the conditions and made 31 not out in 104 balls, attacking very late and only when the tail was in. India were all out for 104, and Australia were comprehensively on top. Second innings, Tendulkar took his time at first - 10 balls to get off the mark with a lot of caution initially... then cut loose after doing the hard graft. Bad surface, Gillespie in mindblowing form, and he went after the bowlers. Produced a masterclass and pulled India back into the match. That sets him apart from just about all his peers, averages, stats and the other useless numbers be damned.