Dravid's future

[Predator_05]

Shut up, whiney.

[graphic23]

Possibly within Bangalore's top 25 :giggle:

Thats arrogance and foolishness and just pure bias and you know it. If you think that Dravid is not one of the great batsmen that India produced, then you're a blind man (perhaps not physically but mentally). But given that you've criticized Sachin of "shamming" an injury, one cannot expect anything better out of you. You, out of all people, should realize that these guys have self-respect, dignity, and honor. They have earned a LOT of money in their lifetime and they will not play (and especially Dravid) for more money if he doesn't believe that he cannot contribute to the team. Anymore comments or criticisms you have towards Dravid are automatically invalid because of the bias you show in criticizing him, Sachin, and whoever else you don't like.

[swami1984]

And who in God's green Earth gives a damn bout T20 anyway? Everyone like it, its wonderfully entertaining, unfailingly enthralling and refreshingly captivating. But T20 is after all, horse-sh!t fcking T20. T20 is just a lame side-dish. Something you need to spice up the main course. But you cant survive on side-dishes alone. Test cricket is the Daddy of all cricket, and RD has been India's most accomplished test cricketer, period.

First of all, stop trying to be like some elitist like R. Guha and pooh-poohing everything that is not Test cricket. As I wrote in another post, test cricket is more dependent on skills of individual players than anything else (Warne's theory which I agree with). T20 in itself has a lot of strategy. Its like rapid chess, where actual chess is like a test match. It has a lot to do with good captaincy and coaching because with those two, you can take a team with only 2-3 stars and a bunch of mediocre players to the top. So stop throwing T20 away and calling it horse-$hit Secondly, are you sure you're not biased for RD!? He may be a great test player and all, but calling him the most accomplished test player from India is sure to put you into several arguments. After all, Gavaskar faced much tougher bowling, with bats that are not half as good as todays bats, on a variety of pitches (facing Marshall/Garner/Lillee/Thomson etc. in Perth/Kingston etc without helmets etc is really something). That's why IMO hes the most accomplished cricketer India's ever produced. And the fact is, honestly we could never find an opener like him ever again (no matter how good people think Viru is).

[Guest HariSampath]

Thats arrogance and foolishness and just pure bias and you know it. If you think that Dravid is not one of the great batsmen that India produced' date=' then you're a blind man (perhaps not physically but mentally). But given that you've criticized Sachin of "shamming" an injury, one cannot expect anything better out of you. You, out of all people, should realize that these guys have self-respect, dignity, and honor. [b']They have earned a LOT of money in their lifetime and they will not play (and especially Dravid) for more money if he doesn't believe that he cannot contribute to the team. Anymore comments or criticisms you have towards Dravid are automatically invalid because of the bias you show in criticizing him, Sachin, and whoever else you don't like.

I will address this comment alone with concrete facts. Wasnt it Dravid who ( speaking for Ganguly and Sachin as well) during the England tour, say that T20 is a youngsters game and as a result all 3 pulled out of WC in SA ? If that is the case, how come suddenly T20 becomes a format where he believes he can contribute?...and that too to an extent he is one of the top 3 highest paid players in IPL ? If Dravid had the honor , dignty and all that you claim, wont he have rejected his "iconic status" and a Miliion dollars too ? So all of ssudden, Dravid , last month, finds he is genuinely an iconic T20 player worth 1 million per year. Dont tell me he didnt ask for the Iconic status. VVS Laxman was also offered the Iconic status and the million bucks, but choose to reject it for the sake of enabling his side to bid for better players ( Now if you call THAT dignity, I may accept :hatsoff: ) Are you telling me that Dravid values dignity over money, and if so....will he shamelessly grab the $ 1 million for each of the next 2 years too ? Lets wait and see. Recently IPL has said that "non performing assets" of franchises can be traded, but their salaries have to be paid. And we have all seen that the worst non performing "asset" among icons in this IPL is Dravid , if we exclude Sachin who has not played yet in any game. Now...as Dravid has become the worst Dud among icons, what does he honestly think he is worth....according to his ability to contribute as per your own argument ? He has contributed nothing and his team has been swamped 6 games out of 8 and likely to finish bottom. So, if Mallaya decides to trade off Dravid and if no one else wants to pay $ 1 million per year for him, do you think Dravid will forego his megabucks check because he is "dignified, has honor, knows he cant contribute and has enough money anyway"...me thinks no...and here, you need to understand the psyche of professional cricketers who are basically in this for money and TV time, and all this talk of dignity will fly before the dollar.

[graphic23]

Hari, T20 WC was a chance to regain some confidence for us because of the poor outing the 2007 ODI WC. It was T20I, not a domestic tournament held in India. When you're considered one of the best bats in the nation, you really do want to play in something that is ground-breaking. I think he had confidence over his ability to bat well (obviously not bowl) and his fielding has not been shabby any any standards - he's pulled off some blinders and saved some certain boundaries. Unfortunately for him, his batting has not clicked. Now, by the reasoning you show, since he is not in the ODI team, does it mean he should not play in the Duleep Trophy or any of the other ODI Tournaments domestically? Did he not score a 136(133) in the Duleep Trophy against West Bengal or Kolkata (I don't remember which team)? I'm not sure about Ganguly but Sachin definitely mentioned that it is a format for the younger lot and he had no problems pulling out. Ganguly hasn't said anything about pulling out of the T20 WC. I think is harsh on our part to expect them to show the same intensity in the field and the same commitment as, say, Rohit Sharma or Robin Uthappa. Similarly, recalling the several hundreds that Dravid has scored domestically since being dropped from the ODI team after the Australia series, I think he trusted himself to bat well. Is it Dravid's responsibility to forego the cheque ? I'm not sure whether Mallya will kick him out. I don't think so but I hope that this issue will not bother him temperamentally when he's playing for India. I do understand your point about giving up the icon status to get better players and also avoiding so much scrutiny. I wish Dravid had done that. But I think he was given the icon status by BCCI so not much he could do perhaps. More than as a batsman, he has failed as a captain who is unable to assess his own position along with the team's. If he had sent someone in before him yesterday, BRC would've most definitely won but he didn't. He allowed pressure to build on him and got out - so much so that he didn't spot the ball at all. I will still hold Dravid in the highest regard and as one of the best bats in India even if Bangalore's record at the end of the IPL is 2-12. I don't care because this format isn't made for batsmen like him. He's not able to be authoritative as Matthew Hayden nor is he able to be innovative with his shots (successfully). Plus, the captain is as good as his team - not the other way around. Just because one player will play well or fail, doesn't mean the team has to and they have not been backing him up in any manner. All this Charu Sharma stuff doesn't help either. For his sake though I hope its a respectable record of 8-6, rather than 2-12.

[Guest HariSampath]

^ I just analyze Dravid's batting based on the inngs of the day and the impact of it on his team's winning chances, whether it is tests, or ODIs , T20s or even FC games. I am not at all biased against him as many misguided folks here think, in their passionate blind support for Dravid, just as many Sachin worshippers here used to call me an SRT basher, just because I see it objectively. In fact this is what I had posted on the Deodhar trophy thread, about Dravid's 100 you referred to...although many ppl here may not know this...

Excellent innings from Dravid, probably the best limited overs inngs I had seen after his 65 ball 90 in England. Although this was a FC match, the bowling was not all that bad, maybe decent, Ranadeb Bose bowled very well, as did Goswami. SZ were down 2 wkts and with not much support from the other end, Dravid played a lone hand , without Laxman too, and playing at a run-a-ball , kept SZ in the hunt till last 10 minutes. SZ never got close I would say at it was a comfortable 23 run win, and the moment 40+ was needed in 24, I never thought Dravid would get big hits. He was cramped too, and played well. Good win for EZ, I was impressed by Saurabh Tiwary and LR Shukla played very intelligent and aggressive cricket. SZ....DROP KKD , pick Murali Vijay who is in great form with 2 matchwinning 100s in Ranji ODI against strong teams like Hyderabad etc in last one week.

Similarily I had appreciated almost all his very good performances, irrespective of FC or Int'l games, just based on the merit of the inngs. In the same breath I have to say I also had been a scathing critic of Dravid when he played poorly in tests or in ODIs or T20s, and his inngs had no bearing on the team's winning goal on the day. Ex : the 300 ball crawl when he got a 100 on a flat track in Chennai against SA, the melbourne test inngs etc. To me its simple : If Dravid plays any inngs that are directly focused on his team's chances of a win its good, if he chooses to put his own interests of the day ahead of his team's , and just bats on and on and on, just to eke out a score so he can play next match, its very poor cricket.

[graphic23]

About his slow innings recently, its not as much about staying in the team as it able to hit the ball past the fielder. Its not like he can hit out in test cricket. He's staying at the wicket for long periods of time, but is unable to score runs. He did the same thing the 1999 tour of Australia as well, he scored like 14 off 114 balls or something like that. I think its a matter of playing freely and playing with confidence - for some strange reason, he's unable to do that. I wouldn't write him off though. While I understand that you are criticizing his recent innings, you cannot say he's great after 1 superb innings and horrible and disgraced after 1 bad innings. I would judge him on how many times has Dravid delivered when the team needed him to and how many 'good' knocks has he produced. For me, a WHOLE lot and therefore, I hold him in the highest regards. I don't think Sachin's 241* will come close to the 233 that he played at Adelaide or the 270 against Pakistan. He's a superb player and I appreciate him for that. I still don't think that saying that T20 is a stupid format is escaping out of the real issue because I think that is the issue. Its a dumb format that depends very greatly on luck and is suited for a specific set of players, of which, till now Dravid is not a part of.

[Guest HariSampath]

How many ODI matches has Rahul Dravid won off his bat for India....surely he has played 300 (?) games and for any top cricketer in International circuit, he must justify that many games given to him...I still call him a failure in ODIs and will never be picked again for India in ODIs. I am of the opinion that he would not have played as many ODIs for India but for the fact the Indian captains have been Sachin, Ganguly and himself for most part of his career and the "old boy network" enabled him to get so many games, which he hasnt justified. In his place India could have well had 2-3 other players for ODIs.

[Guest whineleg]

Shut up' date=' whiney.[/quote'] Modz, can you pleez ban Predator_05 and make all polls public becuz I dont want to be treated like a second grade idjet Thiz iz dizguzting

[Brainfade]

... and they will not play (and especially Dravid) for more money if he doesn't believe that he cannot contribute to the team.

It is ludicrous for people to complain about overpaid athletes, even overpaid, underperforming athletes. It is obvious that RD is not suited to the T20 game. But he was picked and offered a million bucks. He would be a fool to say "No saar, I am not a 20-20 player. I do not want to play." These guys are not quitters. They live and breathe cricket, and want to take every opportunity to play until their minds and bodies (if not skills) are intact. If someone needs to cop the blame for picking RD to play consistently well in a 20-20 tournament, it is the fellow who checked the icon box on the selection sheet.

[Brainfade]

^ To me its simple : If Dravid plays any inngs that are directly focused on his team's chances of a win its good, if he chooses to put his own interests of the day ahead of his team's , and just bats on and on and on, just to eke out a score so he can play next match, its very poor cricket.

With all due respect, how do we judge intent? How do we know that he was putting himself ahead of the team? Maybe he was just unable to get going, and believed that the only way to get going so he can help the team was to bat around the other guys.

[Ram]

As I wrote in another post, test cricket is more dependent on skills of individual players than anything else (Warne's theory which I agree with). T20 in itself has a lot of strategy. Its like rapid chess, where actual chess is like a test match. It has a lot to do with good captaincy and coaching because with those two, you can take a team with only 2-3 stars and a bunch of mediocre players to the top. So stop throwing T20 away and calling it horse-

Totally wrong. Infact, its almost the other way around. T20 is mostly centered around individual brilliance. A spell of 4-1-8-3 or a 40 ball 70 can single-handedly win the match for you.

Secondly' date=' are you sure you're not biased for RD!? He may be a great test player and all, but calling him the most accomplished test player from India is sure to put you into several arguments. After all, Gavaskar faced much tougher bowling, with bats that are not half as good as todays bats, on a variety of pitches (facing Marshall/Garner/Lillee/Thomson etc. in Perth/Kingston etc without helmets etc is really something). That's why IMO hes the most accomplished cricketer India's ever produced.[/quote'] Rahul Dravid is one of the most important reason why our test record since 2002 look respectable. And I respect Gavaskar for his tenacity and technique against Fast bowlers for his era. But whats the bloody point? We hardly won anything when he played. So, all his 'exploits' are not even worth the bytes of memory space they take up in the Hard-disks of cricketing archives, for me atleast.

[Rohan495]

this is by far the stupidest to be put out in this forum

[Guest HariSampath]

And I respect Gavaskar for his tenacity and technique against Fast bowlers for his era. But whats the bloody point? We hardly won anything when he played. So, all his 'exploits' are not even worth the bytes of memory space they take up in the Hard-disks of cricketing archives, for me atleast.

Sriram...you need to seriously take a look at cricinfo stats....Gavaskar has been far more instrumental in India's emergence as a test match side between 1971 and 1987 , individually largely, but with some very good help from GR Vishwanath and later Mohinder Amarnath and Vengsarkar as batsmen. More than Rahul Dravid I would say, and in the Indian scheme of things, Gavaskar is a FAR more acomplished player than Rahul Dravid. Off the top of my head...just one example..Chasing close to 400 in the 4th inngs against England in 1979 at The Oval, India got to within 8 runs of a win on the last day and the game was drawn with Mike Brearly walking off without bowling the last ball...Gavaskar's 221 was one of the greatest inngs by an Indian during a near 400 run chase in a test. I doubt very much if Dravid can ever bat and score a double hundred in a huge runchase...and then Sunny has played a dozen such inngs for India.

[Guest HariSampath]

:hatsoff: Seriously, if the other 10 people (barring Sachin, Ganguly, Laxman, Kumble of course) have shown as much commitment to the game and to the team's cause, we would've been winning games for the past 5 years. Unfortunately, we haven't. You've got people claiming that T20 doesn't even deserve to be a game ( I think it does - just for fun, not to be taken very seriously) and then you've got people like Hari claiming that Dravid has shamed himself cause he couldn't be a very good player of 2020. :confused_smile: Test cricket is the pinnacle and ODIs can also be a tool to measure the player's ability because it has time for the player to build an innings, where as T20 doesn't. Putting things in perspective always helps and unfortunately, for someone who is as involved with cricket as Hari is, it is unfortunate such comments are coming from him.

Let me explain this to you s-l-o-w-l-y for the 3rd time. I am NOT saying Dravid should be dropped in tests because he is poor in T20 and ODIs...I am merely saying, that looking at the way a seasoned veteran like him, just doesnt even seem to grasp the elementary principles of cricket and matches ( like who to select, where to play, how to play, what it takes) to win a T 20...looks like he has lost his cricketing thinking. I would not be saying this if Dravid, even if he were poor in T20, was getting out to small scores trying to force the bowling or losing T20 games...but I am saying it due to his approach in T20, which is still a cricket match, his approach defies all known cricket logic and so I think he has lost the capacity to compete at the highest level in any format

[King]

Even the likes of Afridi that is supposed to be a terrific hitter and suited for Twenty20 format is doing ziltch. Ponting has struggled too but as you would expect there will always be some fans that can't stand certain players. This isn't new and the players don't even care about such fans that come in massive numbers. For every good fan there's about 20 critics. Most critics don't understand cricket or would nothave held a ball or bat in their life time. In particular this trend is prevalent among Indian fans from what I have seen. Ususally the ability of the likes of Tendulkar or Rahul Dravid will never be questioned based on Twenty20 format if they were playing for say Australia, NZ, England, Sri Lanka, South Africa or even West Indies. Mostly Indian and Pakistani fans are very eager to run down great achievers. It's almost like some can't stand top achievers and want to drag them down. It almost sounds sadist. This type of attitude is usual among scribes. Brit tabloids are popular at this.

[Ram]

Sriram...you need to seriously take a look at cricinfo stats....Gavaskar has been far more instrumental in India's emergence as a test match side between 1971 and 1987 , individually largely, but with some very good help from GR Vishwanath and later Mohinder Amarnath and Vengsarkar as batsmen. More than Rahul Dravid I would say, and in the Indian scheme of things, Gavaskar is a FAR more acomplished player than Rahul Dravid. Off the top of my head...just one example..Chasing close to 400 in the 4th inngs against England in 1979 at The Oval, India got to within 8 runs of a win on the last day and the game was drawn with Mike Brearly walking off without bowling the last ball...Gavaskar's 221 was one of the greatest inngs by an Indian during a near 400 run chase in a test. I doubt very much if Dravid can ever bat and score a double hundred in a huge runchase...and then Sunny has played a dozen such inngs for India.

I understand Gavaskar has played many an inspirationa/courageous/tenacious innings that few batsman could ever dream of playing, but he gives me the impression of someone who is obsessed with the art of batting and records. Though, records are records and one has to respect 'em. At the end of the day, Sunil did score all those runs and Kudos to him, but in terms of my own pecking order, he comes below Dravid.

[graphic23]

MM, I don't know - he gave India some recognition in the International Arena. When no other batsman in the world was able to handle the Windies properly, he scored an astonishing 14 centuries against them. I don't know if I'd hold him below Dravid but I wouldn't venture out to say that Gavaskar >>>> Dravid. I agree with your earlier statement that if India has won several overseas series/matches, its primarily because of Dravid. Hari, it is a shame if you really think Dravid has not contributed in the ODI format of the game significantly. You must've been watching some other Dravid playing for someother Indian team because as far as I know, he's been terrific in both the LOI and the Test matches until the end of 2006 since 2000-01. I don't care what you think to be honest because you're so biased (despite your claims that you're not). And I admitted already that he's failed as a captain but not as a batsman. Take what you want from this argument. You, to me, came out as a man who views RD with a prejudice. I've had this argument with "My two cents" a few weeks ago, and it was a productive argument where the debate was not restricted to prejudice - unlike here. You're clearly closed minded. SCG has about the same S/R as RD does but he's seen as an attacking batsman but RD is a slow defensive batsman. And he's been in the team not because of his performances but because of Sachin and Sourav? How many times did Sachin volunteer to wicketkeep in the ODI matches. Rahul did it through the ENTIRE 2003 WC. He did it for the team and not for himself. His value to the team is unmatchable no matter what you think. I'm done arguing with you - it is a waste of my time since you are unable to open your mind.

[King]

I understand Gavaskar has played many an inspirationa/courageous/tenacious innings that few batsman could ever dream of playing' date=' but he gives me the impression of someone who is obsessed with the art of batting and records. Though, records are records and one has to respect 'em. At the end of the day, Sunil did score all those runs and Kudos to him, but in terms of my own pecking order, he comes below Dravid.[/quote'] It's a waste of time Mariris this comparison. Some can even argue Gavaskar was even better than Tendulkar. In the same breath I can argue Kumble is the best ever Indian cricketer considering he has won more games for India than any other player. In short there is no point comparing the likes of Rahul and Gavaskar. They both are in their own rights legends. I've heard Gavaskar rate Rahul among the best in India and Gavaskar has at times rated GRV was better than himself. It's quite a common trend among Indian cricket fans to run down one player because he sees him not as good as someone else. It's almost mindless this comparison. In a team you need all types of players to make an impact like Tendulkar, Rahul, Sehwag, Ganguly, Gavaskar, Kapil Dev, Anil et al... they are all match winners and comparing them is futile. This is not an individual game but a team sport. As long as the player is able to put his hand up and play for the team he's doing his best.

[flamy]

There was a period in ODIs in the last couple of years when if Dravid fell, the cycle stand collapsed around him. He was very important for the ODI team during that time. Now, however, he holds no value to the ODI and T20 teams.