Dravid Interview Part I : "'I'm enjoying Test cricket a lot'

[neiljhonson01]

Nice post i like it so much.

[mrinalmech]

Against NZ in Mumbai Also his 63 ball 92 against England at bristol was a treat to watch He also made a 24 ball 50 against Winides in 02-03 series. He has played some absolute stunners in his career :hatsoff:

India should have won the 2003 world cup for Ganguly and Dravid. (Sachin too, but he got it now). If anyone deserved it, it were these guys. Indians played so well througout the tournament and it wasn't a one-man performance either. SRT against Pak, ZAK against NZ, Srinath against SL, Nehra against Eng. But I knew we had lost it in ZAK's first over. The pressure had got to them. Man, Ganguly should have batted first. :((

[Sidhoni]

Jab dekha ki article hai to mujhe laga ki tune hi likha hai!!

[gaurav92]

Naa ,but a good article nonetheless :nice:

[mrinalmech]

You know what the real fun part is - I got into cricket during the 03 WC and watched regularly till about 2006 before slowly and gradually losing interest. Then SRT was in **** form, RD was getting runs everywhere. Then after I stopped watching, SRT regained form, RD had slump, India became no 1. After this WC, I again regained interest. But watching this Eng series - RD in red hot form, SRT failing to get runs, India collapsing. It's like nothing's changed. :--D

[Feed]

Rahul Dravid and the eternal lament More... Rahul Dravid and the eternal lament Posted on September 17, 2011 by Siddhartha Vaidyanathan Rahul Dravid has played his final one-dayer. It was a dead-rubber in Cardiff. And India lost. It wasnÃÕ meant to be this way. He was supposed to steer India to a World Cup final, smash a hundred in the title clash and sign off with a victory lap. But thatÃÔ just me dreaming. Reality is much harder he suffered the ignominy of a first-round exit in the World Cup, was dropped when he shouldnÃÕ have been, was picked when he shouldnÃÕ have been and finished his one-day career with a most forgettable series. At least he finished on his own terms. When it comes to Dravid and one-dayers, I could never see a fairytale end. It all boils down to the eternal lament. At some point in their lives, fans of Dravid have stared blankly at a ceiling and been overcome with existential angst as they pondered a simple question: Why doesnÃÕ Dravid ever get his due? (The follow-up to this question is an inter-related: Why is Dravid treated so shabbily?) Ever since his Test debut at LordÃÔ, when he was overshadowed by his fellow debutant, Dravid seems to bat with this lament as the background score. Whatever he achieves doesnÃÕ seem to be enough to gain enough peopleÃÔ attention. A conversation about Dravid is incomplete without words like ÅÖnder-appreciated and ÅÖnsung? These are often followed by a sigh. And the tone usually softens. I have stared at several ceilings. Yet I have been confused with my angst. Sure, unlike you-know-who, Dravid doesnÃÕ have hordes of reporters standing outside his house on his birthday (Jan 11 in case youÃÓe interested), his little finger isnÃÕ hyper-analysed if itÃÔ injured and heÃÔ not the most searched name on Cricinfo on 362 days of the year (I am convinced that there are thousands of people who wake up every morning and begin searching ôachin Tendulkar on the internet). But does all this translate to being ÃÖnder-appreciated? HasnÃÕ Dravid been immortalised by a number of his innings? The moment someone says Adelaide or Rawalpindi or Kingston or Headingley isnÃÕ it Dravid that comes to mind? Several years from now wonÃÕ his efforts be one of the few things we will remember from this series whitewash in England? HavenÃÕ writers crafted eulogies about his technique and temperament? WonÃÕ we tell our kids about how the Draxman union could turn dust into gold? Over time I found some answers. DravidÃÔ Test career is a totally different beast. He has owned many Tests and series. He may have lived in the shadows in his early years especially the streak when he kept getting out in the 90s but he has held his own for several years. People associate Dravid with some epic wins. A lot of people understand his tremendous value to the Test side. They acknowledge his greatness. DravidÃÔ one-day career has been played out in a parallel universe. Take a look at this list. It speaks for the eternal lament. Go through the scorecards carefully, recall the games and try and remember your thoughts at each point. A 153 in Hyderabad against New Zealand (his highest score) Tendulkar top-scores; a 145 in Taunton in the World Cup match Ganguly top-scores; a 107 in Chennai (his first hundred) Anwar scores a historic 194; a 103 in Singapore Ricardo Powell stuns India with a blistering 124; a 104 against Kenya in a World Cup match Tendulkar returns from his fatherÃÔ funeral and top-scores; an 84 against a rampaging Donald in Durban India mess up a final; an ice-cool 44 that guides India to a win against Pakistan in a World Cup Tendulkar produces one of the greatest innings of all time. Dravid has 12 ODI hundreds. Only on six of those occasions was he the top-scorer for his side. And only on three of those six occasions did India go on to win. Somehow he was almost never the story. Remember his classy 99 in Karachi? It was drowned by InzamamÃÔ audacious 122 and a most sensational finish. Remember his crisis-averting 86 against Pakistan in Kanpur? It was forgotten after AfridiÃÔ volcanic hundred a few hours later. Cricket is a team sport but itÃÔ players who turn into building blocks for the narratives. Teams win matches but itÃÔ the individual brilliance that sticks in the memory. Throw up any game from the past and you will usually find an individual performance sticking out. Dravid in ODIs is usually not the one who leaps off the headlines, instead heÃÔ often the focus of the second or third paragraph. Rarely has a Dravid innings single-handedly defined a one-dayer. Most of his big knocks were masterful supporting acts, lessons in rebuilding and consolidation. They were played out in the middle overs and underpinned by working the gaps and rotating the strike. Of course there were some scorchers like the 22-ball 50 against New Zealand in Hyderabad and the 63-ball 92 in Bristol but these were usually part of run-gluts with others feasting too. DravidÃÔ biggest contribution to IndiaÃÔ one-day side was his versatility, an attribute that is difficult to quantify in a scorecard. Between 1999 and 2006 he could adapt his batting to any position at any stage of the game and this after a tough few years when he struggled to adjust to the vagaries of the one-day game. His role as a wicketkeeper offered the side the luxury of playing seven specialist batsman. His cool as a finisher not only won many games but also gave the top-order a free reign to attack. I would love to see many of his ODI innings again but the hundred in 2006, when India were chasing 252 in Kingston on an oppressively humid day, remains close to my heart. To know how humid it was, consider this: I remember sitting in the open press box, sweat dripping onto my keyboard, and drinking close to eighteen litres of water through the day yes, 18 without a single visit to the bathroom. My sweat could have filled a bucket. And I was only watching the game. I still donÃÕ know how Dravid managed to keep his sanity as he guided the run-chase with a 102-ball 105. It was a truly masterful innings, notable for the way he sussed the conditions and paced the chase. India won that game in a tense finish. It was their seventeenth successful run-chase. They lost the next game (another nail-biter with Dwayne Bravo bowling a slower ball to fox Yuvraj Singh) and went on to lose the series. The team never recovered their consistency. Dravid, who was probably the best ODI batsman in the world at that point, never scaled those heights again. He was dropped a year later and the rest is quite a forgettable farce. There was no dream ending in Cardiff but it told you a story. Dravid rebuilds. Dravid consolidates. Dravid finds the gaps. Dravid rotates strike. Dravid scores 69. Kohli top-scores. India lose. India round off one of their worst tours in history. It just couldnÃÕ have ended in any other way. And I can now go back to staring at the ceiling. .

[Sooda]

I remember that ton in WI, he celebrated so passionately, meant a lot to him. I agree overall thought I do not think he is under appreciated really, he is widely celebrated as an all time great

[yadhav500]

I remember that ton in WI' date=' he celebrated so passionately, meant a lot to him. I agree overall thought I do not think he is under appreciated really, he is widely celebrated as an all time great[/quote'] He was kinda waning into obscurity, but this English tour where Sachin failed while Dravid excelled put him right back in his place.

[keyboardist]

Rahul Dravid - A Cricketer & A Gentleman This post was initially written for and published in The Cricketist. Find the original article at http://www.thecricketist.com/2011/09/cricketer-gentleman.html A sombre backdrop of dark grey hue, a pregnant and threatening cloud looming in the horizon, a dusty gust of wind resonating the ring of a death bell, many a valiant warriors falling to their travails against an enemy far powerful and you walk in. Somewhere in the minds of a billion countrymen, a bagpiper assumes a steady crescendo to the tunes of that immortal song, Amazing Grace. With blood and gore all around you, you restore the faith of a billion through dignity and character. You dig in with all your resolve, strength or frailty of the body notwithstanding, and you dig in deep. You awe the enemy with your grit, true grit. You awe them such that they succumb to the same quirks of fate that had threatened to decimate your fellow mates. Would I be exaggerating if I said you are the keeper of the faith that a billion entrusted a sports team with? Perhaps the argument will not find many takers for you didnÃÕ wow the legions with flamboyance, didnÃÕ beam through TV sets in a zillion commercials, didn't get knighted or bedevilled by the media as often as others, but you did remind us that to win a game, one did not need any of these. Grit and grace, is what you showed, were substance enough to humble the powerful. In an era where divinity was accorded upon mortals, the outrageous far outnumbered the modest; you stood alone, an apostle of dignity. In a sport that is fast defining itself as a mode of entertainment; you were the odd teacher of morality. It is not easy being upright when the world around you seeps with morbid base traits. Yet you did, you brought a semblance of sanity to an otherwise cacophonous madhouse. To do that amidst the many cat-calls of the fickle minded must not have been an easy task. How could one restrain oneself from playing that outrageous, crowd fixating shot if the situation demanded a sedentary toil of running between the wickets remains a knack elusive to most of your colleagues. But then, they have crafted their niche with such entertaining antics. They hadn't been inquisitioned as often as you for they were the exact, factory built, custom made packages for a stadium demanding overdoses of an adrenalin rush. In such times of easy comers, easy goers, your success still surprises many for your strength according to them, lies not in punishing with the maximum force. But the lesser brain fails to register the fact that a gentle caress has more effectiveness than base brutality. Anyone who has witnessed those cover drives of yours should not have the desire to debate that. The author of epics seldom ingrain themselves in their work. Homer does not allude to himself in Illiad, Vyasa does not call for self glory in Mahabharata. Perhaps, for the epic to be truly great, its author must treat his work with detachment. Perhaps that is why, people remember the impossible victories or the improbable truces that you authored but not you. But then, isn't that the ultimate achievement for a creator? To live through his creations. The epics in Australia, England, South Africa and at home will be remembered for the correct reasons. But were it not for you, there wouldn't be those reasons. A grateful people honor their true heroes. Time will tell if you will receive your deserved due from the people that have a bagful of lessons in life to learn from you. They have to realize that to rise above the muck of arrogance and hubris, to accommodate and adjust and not fight bitter for self, to beat and yet be humble is to be truly great. When I was a child, I detested your disregard for the fanciful. I regaled more in the power of others than in the sublimity of your play. My elder brother, being of far better mental faculties and wiser beyond his years, tried to make me realize your value through his impeccable arguments. I disregarded him at that time only to realize later to my deep embarrassment, how right he was and how wrong was I. I grew up. Whether others will, I know not. You are the true champion of a game that is at war with itself over definition. As Cricket fights to make itself relevant with unabashed worship of brawn and display of seminude girls, the puritans draw solace from the fact that you too lived through these times of transition. You will remain the final argument of an aspiring child who must convince his parents that Cricket is indeed a game of gentlemen. And the parents will not have the heart to contest it, for you are the human embodiment of that precisely - A Cricketer & A Gentleman

[Crookbond]

Rahul Dravid and the eternal lament Read http://bit.ly/nLjMYo

Rahul Dravid has played his final one-dayer. It was a dead-rubber in Cardiff. And India lost. It wasnÃÕ meant to be this way. He was supposed to steer India to a World Cup final, smash a hundred in the title clash and sign off with a victory lap. But thatÃÔ just me dreaming. Reality is much harder he suffered the ignominy of a first-round exit in the World Cup, was dropped when he shouldnÃÕ have been, was picked when he shouldnÃÕ have been and finished his one-day career with a most forgettable series. At least he finished on his own terms. When it comes to Dravid and one-dayers, I could never see a fairytale end. It all boils down to the eternal lament. At some point in their lives, fans of Dravid have stared blankly at a ceiling and been overcome with existential angst as they pondered a simple question: Why doesnÃÕ Dravid ever get his due? (The follow-up to this question is an inter-related: Why is Dravid treated so shabbily?) Ever since his Test debut at LordÃÔ, when he was overshadowed by his fellow debutant, Dravid seems to bat with this lament as the background score. Whatever he achieves doesnÃÕ seem to be enough to gain enough peopleÃÔ attention. A conversation about Dravid is incomplete without words like ÅÖnder-appreciated and ÅÖnsung? These are often followed by a sigh. And the tone usually softens. I have stared at several ceilings. Yet I have been confused with my angst. Sure, unlike you-know-who, Dravid doesnÃÕ have hordes of reporters standing outside his house on his birthday (Jan 11 in case youÃÓe interested), his little finger isnÃÕ hyper-analysed if itÃÔ injured and heÃÔ not the most searched name on Cricinfo on 362 days of the year (I am convinced that there are thousands of people who wake up every morning and begin searching Á´achin Tendulkar on the internet). But does all this translate to being ÁÖnder-appreciated? HasnÃÕ Dravid been immortalised by a number of his innings? The moment someone says Adelaide or Rawalpindi or Kingston or Headingley isnÃÕ it Dravid that comes to mind? Several years from now wonÃÕ his efforts be one of the few things we will remember from this series whitewash in England? HavenÃÕ writers crafted eulogies about his technique and temperament? WonÃÕ we tell our kids about how the Draxman union could turn dust into gold? Over time I found some answers. DravidÃÔ Test career is a totally different beast. He has owned many Tests and series. He may have lived in the shadows in his early years especially the streak when he kept getting out in the 90s but he has held his own for several years. People associate Dravid with some epic wins. A lot of people understand his tremendous value to the Test side. They acknowledge his greatness. DravidÃÔ one-day career has been played out in a parallel universe. Take a look at this list. It speaks for the eternal lament. Go through the scorecards carefully, recall the games and try and remember your thoughts at each point. A 153 in Hyderabad against New Zealand (his highest score) Tendulkar top-scores; a 145 in Taunton in the World Cup match Ganguly top-scores; a 107 in Chennai (his first hundred) Anwar scores a historic 194; a 103 in Singapore Ricardo Powell stuns India with a blistering 124; a 104 against Kenya in a World Cup match Tendulkar returns from his fatherÃÔ funeral and top-scores; an 84 against a rampaging Donald in Durban India mess up a final; an ice-cool 44 that guides India to a win against Pakistan in a World Cup Tendulkar produces one of the greatest innings of all time. Dravid has 12 ODI hundreds. Only on six of those occasions was he the top-scorer for his side. And only on three of those six occasions did India go on to win. Somehow he was almost never the story. Remember his classy 99 in Karachi? It was drowned by InzamamÃÔ audacious 122 and a most sensational finish. Remember his crisis-averting 86 against Pakistan in Kanpur? It was forgotten after AfridiÃÔ volcanic hundred a few hours later. Cricket is a team sport but itÃÔ players who turn into building blocks for the narratives. Teams win matches but itÃÔ the individual brilliance that sticks in the memory. Throw up any game from the past and you will usually find an individual performance sticking out. Dravid in ODIs is usually not the one who leaps off the headlines, instead heÃÔ often the focus of the second or third paragraph. Rarely has a Dravid innings single-handedly defined a one-dayer. Most of his big knocks were masterful supporting acts, lessons in rebuilding and consolidation. They were played out in the middle overs and underpinned by working the gaps and rotating the strike. Of course there were some scorchers like the 22-ball 50 against New Zealand in Hyderabad and the 63-ball 92 in Bristol but these were usually part of run-gluts with others feasting too. DravidÃÔ biggest contribution to IndiaÃÔ one-day side was his versatility, an attribute that is difficult to quantify in a scorecard. Between 1999 and 2006 he could adapt his batting to any position at any stage of the game and this after a tough few years when he struggled to adjust to the vagaries of the one-day game. His role as a wicketkeeper offered the side the luxury of playing seven specialist batsman. His cool as a finisher not only won many games but also gave the top-order a free reign to attack. I would love to see many of his ODI innings again but the hundred in 2006, when India were chasing 252 in Kingston on an oppressively humid day, remains close to my heart. To know how humid it was, consider this: I remember sitting in the open press box, sweat dripping onto my keyboard, and drinking close to eighteen litres of water through the day yes, 18 without a single visit to the bathroom. My sweat could have filled a bucket. And I was only watching the game. I still donÃÕ know how Dravid managed to keep his sanity as he guided the run-chase with a 102-ball 105. It was a truly masterful innings, notable for the way he sussed the conditions and paced the chase. India won that game in a tense finish. It was their seventeenth successful run-chase. They lost the next game (another nail-biter with Dwayne Bravo bowling a slower ball to fox Yuvraj Singh) and went on to lose the series. The team never recovered their consistency. Dravid, who was probably the best ODI batsman in the world at that point, never scaled those heights again. He was dropped a year later and the rest is quite a forgettable farce. There was no dream ending in Cardiff but it told you a story. Dravid rebuilds. Dravid consolidates. Dravid finds the gaps. Dravid rotates strike. Dravid scores 69. Kohli top-scores. India lose. India round off one of their worst tours in history. It just couldnÃÕ have ended in any other way. And I can now go back to staring at the ceiling.

[Sachin=GOD]

153 in Hyderabad against New Zealand (his highest score) Tendulkar top-scores; a 145 in Taunton in the World Cup match Ganguly top-scores; a 107 in Chennai (his first hundred) Anwar scores a historic 194; a 103 in Singapore Ricardo Powell stuns India with a blistering 124; a 104 against Kenya in a World Cup match Tendulkar returns from his fatherÃÔ funeral and top-scores; an 84 against a rampaging Donald in Durban India mess up a final; an ice-cool 44 that guides India to a win against Pakistan in a World Cup Tendulkar produces one of the greatest innings of all time. Dravid has 12 ODI hundreds. Only on six of those occasions was he the top-scorer for his side. And only on three of those six occasions did India go on to win. Somehow he was almost never the story. Remember his classy 99 in Karachi? It was drowned by InzamamÃÔ audacious 122 and a most sensational finish. Remember his crisis-averting 86 against Pakistan in Kanpur? It was forgotten after AfridiÃÔ volcanic hundred a few hours later.

So many of his great innings overshadowed........ I remember that 86 in Kanpur very well - I had gone to watch the match with such high hopes and ended up watching Afridi hit 9 sixes on his way to a century to lead Pakistan to a victory :sniffle:

[Feed]

Dravid, the Hurricane Man More... September 20, 2011, Dravid, the Hurricane Man By SIDIN VADUKUT In the history and mythology of the Second World War, the Battle Of Britain has an important emotional and pivotal role. For around four months through the summer and fall of 1940, a titanic struggle for air supremacy exploded in the air over Britain. Rahul Dravid leaves the field after being dismissed during the fifth one day international against England in Cardiff on September 16, 2011. Hitler hoped that his air force would destroy, if not irreversibly cripple, British planes. Once his air superiority over the British isles was established, Hitler planned, the British would either surrender or succumb to invasion. What follows is the stuff of legend, one of historyÃÔ classic good versus evil battles. A beleaguered Britain was pounded but refused to give up. And eventually in October the Luftwaffe withdrew and Britain survived. Since then one particular British aircraft has always been credited with the victory: the Supermarine Spitfire. The Spitfire was designed as a sleek, sexy, speedy fighter and the first to be made entirely out of metal. In the world of fighter aircraft, the Spitfire was the Porsche or the Ferrari of its day. Boys dreamed of flying one. Children had posters of Spitfires up on their walls, and memorized makes and models and modifications. This is grave injustice. Because while the Spitfire played a critical role in the battle, greater credit must go to another ungainly, unfashionable, unsexy aircraft: the Hawker Hurricane. It was slow, heavy and, compared to the Spitfire, ugly. But the Hurricane was the RAFÃÔ workhorse during the battle. More Hurricanes took to the skies than Spitfires. The Hurricanes shot down more German planes almost 60 percent of total losses than Spitfires. And the ramshackle Hurricanes took much more punishment: around 600 Hurricanes were shot down compared to Spitfire losses of around 350. A brief profile of the Hawker Hurricane: 2xpfuE93kJs&feature=player_embedded Rahul Dravid, you canÃÕ help but feel, is the Hawker Hurricane of Indian cricket. Last week, Mr. Dravid played his last 50-over cricket match in Indian colors. Having retired from all other forms, he will now only play Test Cricket. In the days leading up to that match, and in the days after, much has been written about this unsung stalwart of the Indian cricket team. An omnipresent theme in all of the coverage has been that Mr. Dravid never has, and probably never will, get the credit due to him. While Mr. Dravid is a Spitfire in the five-day format, in the shorter affair he has always been seen a slow, square peg in a rapacious, round hole. When forced to accelerate, he had a tendency to lose the fluidity that came naturally to him. We winced when he swung and he missed. But few Indian cricketers are loved so universally. So we were always wincing with him. Not at him. Ÿhy, IÃ×e thought so many times, ÅÂre we making him debase himself with this nonsense. Unfortunately, for a man who has scored almost 11,000 runs in the ODI format, Mr. DravidÃÔ reputation is oddly one of someone who struggled to do well in the format. As Sidvee points out in his nostalgic blog post, even when Mr. Dravid did perform in a match, his performance was rarely definitive and usually overshadowed. Also, perhaps, Mr. Dravid has been given a frustrating nickname: ŵhe Wall. Walls are passive. Walls donÃÕ react. Walls just stand there soaking up punishment without retaliating. Walls donÃÕ back down, or step up. But Rahul Dravid always stepped up. He never backed down. Rahul Dravid ran and ran till perspiration flowed from his face. And Rahul Dravid reacted plenty. Usually in one of two ways. Sometimes, when he took a catch or scored a century he reacted with this odd ferocity. You can almost sense his teeth gnashing. After running out Inzamam, a fierce Rahul Dravid keeps running and running: 8vbpCK7zxZI&feature=player_embedded Other times Mr. Dravid would break into the most wonderful smile ever smiled on a sporting ground. All the dourness and gritty determination that marked his batting would vanish, and his happy face and toothy grin would radiate a nationÃÔ worth of happiness. Rahul Dravid beams after picking up a rare ODI wicket off his bowling: xI99TE3iUz0&feature=player_embedded Teeth everywhere after taking a then-record 182nd Test catch: R_KMwzb-NKw&feature=player_embedded Rahul Dravid was never the Spitfire. Few posters of him will go up. And perhaps few young cricketers will memorize his statistics and grow up aspiring to be the next Rahul Dravid. But history and Youtube videos and cricket statistics will show that in some of Indian cricketÃÔ most dire moments of crisis the Wall was our Hurricane. .

[Sidhoni]

:hatsoff:

[Feed]

DEBATING DRAVID : Ramachandra Guha More... DEBATING DRAVID - An intense but civilized exchange between two cricket writers POLITICS AND PLAY: Ramachandra Guha More than dependable Earlier this year, after IndiaÃÔ tour of the West Indies, I wrote a piece comparing Rahul Dravid to Vijay Hazare, also a cricketer of enormous skill and achievement, given less than his due by fans and writers alike. The day after my column appeared, I received an intensely-felt mail from a cricket writer based in Andhra Pradesh, with whom I have had many exchanges over the years. Ū must confess that I did not really like the piece on Dravid, he said. ůot that it was badly written for there can never be dull and drab stuff from you. But the subject you have chosen was indeed dull, it applies to both, Hazare and Dravid. My friend continued: Å´omehow I am not a big fan of Dravid. No doubt, he played several crucial innings for the sake of his country. But he is a big bore to watch. I hold him responsible for the draw in the last Test at Dominica (34 [runs] off 89 [balls]). He always allows the bowlers to dominate and prospered because people like Laxman, Ganguly, Sachin, Sehwag were scoring at the other end. Please note that all his great knocks are part of big partnerships with the guys mentioned above. He is that proverbial second fiddle, or a slow and sad violin at that. Probably he is the last of his kind in this T20 era. No other future batsman would block so much and still hope to play for the country for 15 years even in Tests. He is a very bad advertisement for Test cricket. Hazare too was similar to Dravid, an accumulator of runs. My friend ended his mail, with these words, and these emphases: Å¢ ROMANTIC LIKE MR. GUHA SHOULD NEVER LIKE DRAVID AND HIS STODGY WAYS. Sorry if I crossed my limits. The mail arrived in the evening; the next morning, I replied to my friend noting that ÅÇor the student of the game, the technician is as much worth studying as the innovator or dasher. In ÅÉis quiet, understated way, I added, Ã…Â¥ravid has done as much as anyone else to make us the number one team in Test cricket. He has played great innings in Pakistan, Australia, England (his 148 at Headingley was in my view the finest innings played by an Indian overseas), South Africa, New Zealand. What more do you want? Your mail, with its sourness, its lack of generosity, is unbecoming of a cricket lover and a cricket writer. I further noted that ÅÂnother way in which Dravid has contributed hugely, if unobtrusively, is in his fielding who would ever have thought an Indian would hold the world record for most catches! When I didnÃÕ hear back for a week, I sent my friend a second mail. By this time, Dravid had scored a brilliant hundred in the first Test against England, played at LordÃÔ. (If two or three other batsmen had shown the same skill and character, India would have not lost, and not gone demoralized into the second Test.) Ū hope now, I told my friend, ÅÕhat you have the grace to take back your ill-chosen words on Dravid. What he did yesterday he has done countless times down the years. If you think he is ÃÃ…ull and drab? then perhaps you should only watch Twenty20! His technique is classical, like Sunil GavaskarÃÔ any real student of the game would have appreciated and admired his innings yesterday. He had also, I pointed out, shown himself to be a ÅÄompletely selfless man, as shown by his agreeing to keep [wickets] at the age of 38 the previous day. Three days later, I received a gracious, self-critical mail from my friend in the Andhra country. Å´orry sir, I did not check the mail the last two days, he began. Ūn fact I myself wanted to write to you to take back my over the top remarks in the last mail. While watching that monumental first innings effort from Dravid at the LordÃÔ, a feeling of guilt was running through my mind! My friend wanted to make two things clear: ÅÊ) I donÃÕ dislike Dravid; ii) I am a strong votary for Tests and donÃÕ like the T20 format much. My problem with Dravid is not based on viewing pleasure for I belong to the ÃÕransistor generation and not to the modern cricketainment types. In fact a few years back I wrote an article in Andhra Jyothi daily wherein I compared him to the èreat Wall and Sachin to the õaj and explained to the Telugu readers how McCabe too got overshadowed by Bradman. What I donÃÕ like about Dravid is despite his outstanding ability he shows too much respect for ordinary bowlers and even to part-time trundlers. Never takes the fight to the opposition camp and thereby surrenders the initiative (unless someone at the other end spurs him up). Despite these caveats, my friend agreed that ÅÕhere can be no two opinions about DravidÃÔ commitment to the teamÃÔ cause. One more thing that doesnÃÕ get proper mention was the superb fitness levels that he maintains. I donÃÕ remember a match which he missed due to injury or illness. My fellow cricket writer then turned to the question of the Indian Premier League. Ū do watch T20, he said, ÅÃut I strongly oppose the proliferation of that format. I am really saddened that all Indian stars played IPL and skipped the Windies tour. I think you only wrote once as to how the Pak[istan] players prepared for the 1978 series against India by asking their countrymen in England not to bowl fast to avoid injuries. But the Indian teamÃÔ preparation for the all important England tour is spoiled a great deal by the T20 league. For all this, my friend said that he would still ÅØatch IPL with some interest. In fact I watch all cricket whatever the format. I would like to go back to the IPL first season when people like you and Mukul Kesavan vowed not [to] watch the league. Your famous quote [comparing Test cricket to] scotch, [one-day internationals to] IMFL and [Twenty20 to] country liquor was widely borrowed by people like me. But I enjoy all formats. I donÃÕ waste any opportunity to criticize the shorter format but still enjoy it because it is also cricket, I have no hang-ups. It is like those intellectuals who criticize obscenity in films but still enjoy the hot scenes in private. But give me Test cricket any day? Meanwhile, Dravid went on to score a century in the second Test of the series, and yet another century in the fourth. I now heard from my friend, the Andhra cricket writer, again. He was in Tirupati on holiday with his family, where, as he wrote to me, Ū thought about you and my insinuations about Dravid when I came to know that Mr Dependable scored yet another hundred thru my mobile updates. Sometimes one feels happy to eat oneÃÔ own words and it was one such occasion. I share this exchange now for three reasons. First, for its content, for what it tells us about the ways in which cricketers are assessed and appreciated. Second, for its form unlike so many conversations in cyberspace, this one is passionate without being personal, analytical rather than abusive. It was open-ended, dialogic in a word, civilized. Third, because in the weeks that have elapsed since my column was first published, the modern Hazare has enhanced his reputation further, by his batsmanship and his conduct in the Test series against England, where he has been, more or less, the only player not to have let down his team, or, indeed, himself.

[Laaloo]

[Blue Panther]

Amazing fitness level at this age. He surely is an inspiration for any youngster.