Dravid's finesse stands out against Tendulkar's figures

[hari504504]

oh noo... shield this from India TV please... "Bhagwaan ka Apmaan 2.0"

[TheWall]

Dravid has 2 centuries in 11 tours to OZ' date='SA and SL. Is this thread a joke ?[/quote'] A test match win or a century to add to the count? What would u prefer?

[akshayxyz]

Dravid is w/o a doubt one of the greatest test batsman to come from India. But this long rant is guilty of typical illogical arguments, selective filtering. e.g. from first half (I had to stop reading half way through) - judging an individual by team results, or attributing win/loss more to an individual, in a team game. - if test cricket is significantly tougher than ODI and purest test of cricketing/batting skills and runs come easy in ODIs then why don't all the top test bats perform at least as well in ODIs too.

[akshayxyz]

As remarkable as his achievements are, he has attained them without the undoubted genius that Tendulkar was born with. As Sambit Bal, Editor of ESPNCricinfo writes, 'Cricketers like Tendulkar and Lara were destined for greatness, while Dravid has scripted his own destiny.'

What a way to bring down a great, in an article meant to praise him. Dravid was also destined to the greatness that he ended up achieving. Whoever thinks otherwise, look at his early career. Another funny part is, the author had too say - Lara/Sachin were born with unfair genius, hence Dravid's greatness/achievements are greater than others' :hysterical: - as if Dravid had to overcome some severe inferiority complex / handicap. And not to mention - author needed to mention comparison with Tendulkar in the title of an article meant to celebrate greatness of Dravid . When I retire, I will ask someone to write a tribute to me - how I was better than Tendulkar, who could not even pass class X exams.

[CasualVisitor]

I can't comment on finesse aspect as I have either switched off TV or went to other channels when RD was batting. To me, one of the most boring batsman to watch. No, am not from a neighboring country.

[hari504504]

Another funny part is, the author had too say - Lara/Sachin were born with unfair genius, hence Dravid's greatness/achievements are greater than others' :hysterical: - as if Dravid had to overcome some severe inferiority complex / handicap.

Correct me if am wrong, but wasn't Dravid included in the test side on that England tour only because Manjrekar was injured ( was a passenger otherwise like Tiwary of today) Tendulkar on the other hand was handpicked for that Pak tour cause everyone saw he was destined for greatness. Just trying to understand the context.

[Andrew Peter]

I can't comment on finesse aspect as I have either switched off TV or went to other channels when RD was batting. To me' date=' one of the most boring batsman to watch. No, am not from a neighboring country.[/quote'] Indeed most boring batsman ever along with likes of Chanderpaul , Trott and Samaraweera . Tuk , tuk , tuk , tuk , tuk till the end of the world .

[akshayxyz]

Correct me if am wrong' date=' but wasn't Dravid included in the test side on that England tour [b']only because Manjrekar was injured ( was a passenger otherwise like Tiwary of today) Tendulkar on the other hand was handpicked for that Pak tour cause everyone saw he was destined for greatness. Just trying to understand the context.

But that serves well with "destiny theories" - it was hand of God, that Manjrekar got injured just at the right time, any time sooner - Dravid might not have debuted as well - because he had some glaring handicap / lack of genius :D. Anyway - before usual suspects jump the guns, I am only critiquing the author, and not the object of the article. There are better ways to pay tribute to someone as great as Dravid, than try proving supremacy over an individual or two - which, unfortunately, comes across more like a case of inferiority complex.

[Sooda]

Riposte. ----------------- Watching the circus around Rahul Dravid's retirement today has confirmed what I've always felt - people tend to go overboard with praise, often forgetting the facts, once a person is retired (or dead). I dread to think what will happen when the overdue retirement of Tendulkar takes place. Tendulkar fanboys (closely followed by Dravidtards) can't accept their hero being number 2 in anything. Tell them that Tendulkar is the second best bowler of all time and they'll debate it. Even reasonable and constructive criticism is not allowed. Dravidtards spend their life trying to prove that he is better than Tendulkar. Their world started in 2002 and ended in 2006. Only that period counts. A man who was deemed to be useless a month back as his stumps took a pounding in virtually every innings is now being talked about like he's the second coming of Jesus. Is it not possible to celebrate a career but also offer a balanced view? If you knew nothing about the game and tuned in today, you'd think that Dravid was a player who never failed and the greatest human being that ever lived. Who cares about a player's personality anyway? Being a nice guy does not bump your average up. The fact is that Rahul Dravid has been useless to the Indian team since the SA tour in 2006/07. He has failed in Aus twice, England once, SL twice and SA twice. He failed against the bigger teams at home as well. Before last summer in the WI, he hadn't made a hundred outside India since 2006 in the WI. His stats were beefed up by scoring plenty of cheap runs against NZ, WI and SL in India where every man and his dog made runs. A good summer in England was an exception and clearly wiped out his struggle from the minds of the average and often ignorant Indian fan.Between the end of 2006 and the start of 2011, Dravid averaged only 28 against Pak, Aus, SA and England. If you include the away record in SL, it looks like a record of a tailender. The guy was a good player but he should have retired long back. Talks about him being able to play on or that the timing was perfect (from business partner Bhogle) are a joke. He has got a long run based on his reputation much like everyone in Indian cricket has from Tendulkar to Sehwag. Dravid is no exception. As a player, it helps to have the media on your side. Not many cricketers (or sportsmen) have been smart enough to realise this. They are the people who mould public opinion and the majority of people believe what they read and hear. Dravid has done this better than most. Coming back to the stuff that matters. No one would argue that Australia and SA have been the best attacks in Dravid's era. His record in SA is downright pathetic less than 30 spread over 21 matches with just 1 hundred. SA have had a terrific attack on every tour unlike Australia. Dravid's average in Australia (41) is decent but not great. It however hides the truth. He averaged only 15 when they had their best attack with McGrath and Warne in 1999/2000. On the following tour, when Australia had an inexperienced pop-gun attack with the likes of Bracken, Brad William and Andy Bichel, he proceeded to smash over 600 runs in the series. Now again in 2007/08, Australia had a good attack with Lee at his peak, Clark being talked of as a Mcgrath replacement with his terrific record and Johnson showing form that we later saw in SA. Dravid failed again with an average of 33, which included some painful innings like the ones in Melbourne. Very similar to his crawl at the Oval in 2007 or the one in Bangalore in 2001. How did Dravid do so well in England and fail in Australia? The fact is that the Aussies sorted Dravid out long back. After the tour in 2003/04 infact. They bowled a different line in 2004 in India along with a packed leg side field and choked him. Dravid hasn't made a hundred against Australia since 2003. England bowled too wide at him and then into the pads. Clearly the maths chap from Cambridge wasn't doing his homework. Since the start of the 2004 home series against Australia, Dravid has averaged 25 at a s/r of 34 against Australia. Now to the country of the highest wicket taker in the world SL. Dravid struggled against Warne and he struggled against Murali as well. His test record in SL avg of 33- is proof of that. Dravid's record vs Pakistan is another case of facts being hidden. When they had Wasim, Waqar and Saqlain at his peak in 1999/2000, Dravid struggled. He didn't make a hundred across the 3 tests (2 test series + ATC) and averaged 27. Following their retirements, he plundered runs on some of the flattest wickets you will ever come across. In fact, the boredom associated with India-Pak matches between 2004-07 was largely due to the roads they were played on. Dravid cashed in. In 2006 for example, he made hundred in both the drawn games at Lahore and Faislabad (where even Afridi scored runs and India made 400/1 or something ridiculous) but failed in the test where the ball did something, scoring 3 and 2 in Karachi. The double in 2004 was a decent effort but again was on a road against a mediocre attack (with Akhtar walking off the field) much like Tendulkar's double in Sydney. Good but nothing outstanding. Scoring runs against Fazal-e-Akbar, Sami and Imran Farhat cannot be called a great achievement. That India won the match it totally irrelevant. The bowling attack was of club standard. So a man who was terrible against the two greatest spinners as well as the two best teams is an ATG? The fact is that Dravid bashed plenty of cheap runs vs bottom ranked teams like WI and NZ that bumps his average masssively. The only good team that he has an excellent away record against is England. He had a blip in 2007 but he has been sublime otherwise, starting from the 95 at Lord's to the 146 at the Oval. A man who has struggled against pretty much every great bowlers from Murali to Akram to Dale Steyn cannot be an all-time great batsman. In a world 11, you're talking of people who can dominate attacks in the middle order and not a plodder who can't get the ball off the square when up against a great bowler. Has Dravid ever played a dominating test knock? Outside of openers, how many greats have been defensive players? None. For all the talk about being the man in tough situations, Dravid 4th innings record is mediocre. He has never made a hundred in the 4th innings in a match where there has been a result. His highest being the 75 at Kandy. One other knock of note is the one at Adelaide but not even 1 big 4th innings score in a result-oriented game in 16 years. If you exclude his gimme hundred in NZ when NZ were happy with a draw and a series win and bowled McMillan and Roger Twose ahead of Doull and Cairns, his average is in the late 30s. He hasn't made a 50+ 4th innings score since 2006 and this is when India have had most of their best run chases like Delhi 2007, Chennai 2008, Bangalore 2010, Mohali 2010, Colombo 2010 etc. What was Dravid't contribution in these great wins? Nothing. He hasn't been a major factor in successful 4th innings run chases. http://stats.espncricinfo.com/ci/eng...s;type=batting Plenty is made out of the man that Dravid is. Frankly, I couldn't care less about it but let't look at it since it receives so much praise. He spoke at the Bradman oration about meaningless ODIs but didn't utter a word against what many people perceive to be the bane of Indian cricket T20 cricket and the IPL. Why? It was a great chance to make a statement, much like Sangakkara did when he spoke at Lord's last summer against his board and politics, but clearly losing the IPL money was too much to risk. Here is a man who retired from ODIs and now tests, but continues to play what he himself described as a "tamasha"? This is after being insulted and later sent packing from the Royal Challengers Bangalore IPL team. If it wasn't for a bid from the Royals, Dravid would have gone unsold since no one else wanted him. So Dravid loves his cash like the rest of us. Why make him out to be a Gandhi then? Another incident that gets attention is the Multan declaration. While I have no problem with a batsman (I don't care if it happens to be Tendulkar or Chris Martin) being left a few runs short because of a declaration, I do have a problem with people believing that Dravid would have done the same if he was batting. Harsha Bhogle, who it must be remembered is Dravid's business partner, couldn't stop gushing about it on a television programme this evening. Would Dravid have declared if he was batting? Not a chance. He is a man who batted on as Karnataka captain just to get his double hundred vs UP in the 2009/2010 Ranji semi-final. UP batted only 7 overs at the *** end of the day and lost 2 wickets. That could have been an hour or more of bowling if Dravid had not gone after his double hundred. Why didn't he declare on 180 or 190? Do you think that a man who is concerned about a FC double hundred would declare short of a test hundred or double? Stop kidding yourself. http://cricketarchive.com/Archive/Sc...51/251044.html Dravid the ODI batsman was a choker in the true sense. Anyone remember his famous choke against Dharmasena and Jayasuriya? It was the worst end over batting I've ever seen. This is after his comeback from the embarrassing performances in 1998 when he couldn't even score against Bangladesh and had a strike rate of 50 odd. His record chasing is terrible avg of 35 at a s/r of 68 and it's no surprise that India's major wins have come after Dhoni showed him the door. Dravid in the WC quarters vs Aus or final vs SL of the 2011 WC would have choked. After his exit, India have won series in SL, NZ, Aus and the World Cup, besides building an incredible home record. India's record in finals with Dravid won 3, lost 17. Without Dravid won 10, lost 8. I hear that Dravid is underrated. He isn't. If anything, his achievements are overstated. http://tracerbullet.blog.com/

[Sooda]

http://www.indiancricketfans.com/showthread.php?t=279703 Only in India would we downplay the achievements of one great to make another seem better.

[akshayxyz]

Riposte. ----------------- http://tracerbullet.blog.com/

That is pretty hard hitting and very well researched riposte. Even though this is also guilty of typical selective filtering, but same technique has been used to prove him on another pedestal than he actually deserves, not to mention supposedly he had to overcome some severe handicap (ain't that a backhanded compliment ?)

[master22]

Dravid has 2 centuries in 11 tours to OZ' date='SA and SL. Is this thread a joke ?[/quote'] No you are wrong.Dravid is the only person to have scored a century in every test playing nation so he will have atleast 3 centuries for sure.:sherlock:

[CSK Fan]

My signature is exactly for the people like OP Cricket is a game of 11 players. I repeat its a game of 11 players. A bowler still has to take wickets for a team to win. Laxman still had to score that 280. Bhajji still had to take that hat-trick for India to win the epic Eden test. By the authors logic, Dravid single-handedly won us that test and the whole credit goes to Dravid. For most of dravid's so called winning 100s, there was a Laxman or a Sehwag at the other end scoring a 100 at a much faster rate. What Dravid is really good at is forming long partnership, but giving the whole credit to Dravid for those matches? Dravid is one of the greatest batsmen ever let alone from India. But as soon as people talk about team results when comparing 2 individual players, they are being retarted. Team results come because elelven of one team's players are better than eleven of the other teams. bowler takes a hat-trick after a batsman socres a 100. On the other side a bowler goes for run agter another batsman scores 100 at the same rate. How is the batsman responsible for either one? When a batsman scores he does his job. There is only so much of the team results he can influence. Talking about wins and loses when comparing individuals is the most retarted things fans can do but they still insist on doing it. Its by this very logic than Pakistanis claim that Inzamam is the best Asian test batsman ever

[CSK Fan]

The saddest thing for me here is that Dravid is one of the finest players in the world, let alone India. Yet his supporters like the OP think that the only chance they have to praise him is to pull down Sachin in some way. Is it because subconciosuly they know that Sachin is above him, is the yard stick for all good batting or because its a deep rooted problem of not being able to look past Sachin. Either which ways, its not doing Dravid any favors