Back to pavilion, for good

Cricketer Rahul Dravid will no longer don the India colours. After a disastrous tour to Australia, Dravid has done what he ought to have done after a personally successful England tour in 2011 — hang up his boots.

No longer will cricket fans and spectators see him walking out briskly to the middle at the fall of the first wicket. The brow furrowed in intense concentration, as he takes guard. The nervous tapping of the bat as the bowler gets to the top of his bowling run-up, the rather elaborate wave of the bat as he leaves the ball alone to the wicket-keeper, or the copybook follow-through of the bat after he has played a stroke… and the rather ungainly running between the wickets.

LINE OF DEFENCE

One wonders who thought of the nickname of “The Wall” for Dravid. I am sure nothing could have been more colourless. Nor did it do justice to Dravid, the cricketer. ‘The Wall', one assumes, was supposed to describe the solidity of his defence. Dravid surely was a solid number three player, but the Wall was a misnomer. He was the pivot — calm, understated and always there — in the company of the more swashbuckling Virender Sehwag, or Sachin Tendulkar, or the artistic V. V. S. Laxman.

His technique was copybook, so much so that when batting opposite the likes of Sehwag, Dravid appeared pedestrian.

The bowling and the pitch, too, assumed different dimensions with him. But, then, as he admitted, he could never aspire to play like a Sehwag or a Sachin. That was the quintessential Dravid — modest to a fault, aware of his limitations, and playing well within them. He was always the team man.

He follows a long line of Karnataka players who played for the country with panache, and left their mark on the game without ever having to resort to histrionics or getting into any controversy — G. R. Vishwanath, B. S. Chandrasekhar, E. A. S. Prasanna, Syed Kirmani, Brijesh Patel, of a bygone period, and more recently, Javagal Srinath and Anil Kumble. There was something in them that gained them the respect of team mates and opponents alike.

FAMOUS TRIO

Dravid is the first of the famed trio — the other two being Sachin Tendulkar and V. V. S. Laxman — to call it a day.

If everybody still talks of Laxman's 281, following on against Australia at Kolkata as one of the greatest second innings double centuries, it is easy to forget that it was Dravid at the other end, lending solid support to the stylish and graceful Laxman. One wonders if Laxman would have been able to wield his magical bat the way he did, if he hadn't had Dravid at the opposite end. When Dravid and Laxman were together at the batting crease, nothing seemed impossible for the die-hard Indian fan.

Dravid, who turned 39 in January, played in 164 test matches, scored 13,288 runs, with 36 centuries and 63 half-centuries, with a highest of 270, and an average of 52.61. He has the record of having pouched the highest number of catches in tests — 210 — most of them at his favourite position near the wicket keeper. He captained India in 25 tests, and won eight and lost six. Dravid played 344 one-day internationals, scored 10,889 runs, with 12 centuries and 83 half-centuries, with an average of 39.16. He also kept wickets for India.

Interestingly, the Board of Control for Cricket in India's web site, in its profile of players, mentions Dravid was a right-arm off-break bowler, something that he has never done in international matches.

In the recently-concluded Australia tour, Dravid scored just 194 runs in four test matches, with an average of 24.25, getting bowled in six of the eight innings.

‘The Wall', as cricket writers said, was breached repeatedly. Sign enough that his time was up. One would have hoped he would have retired in greater glory, rather than leave the pathetic performance in Australia in the minds of fans and critics alike.

He may not have left his mark on the field in Australia, but his Bradman oration in Canberra before the start of the series will surely be talked of for a long time to come, for its honesty and candour.

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