Rahul Dravid- The man who epitomised team spirit

Dravid scored 13,288 runs in Test cricket, 10,889 runs in ODIs

The main question, if you care to think about it, isn’t whether Rahul Dravid is the last classical Test match batsman. 

Of that there’s little doubt. There’s the 13,288 Test runs, several more than Brian Lara, Matt Hayden, Michael Hussey, Andrew Flower, Inzamam ul-Haq, Younis Khan, Aravinda de Silva’s tally. 

There’s no fewer than 36 Test match centuries, even more than what Lara, Gavaskar, Steven Waugh and Saeed Anwar struck. 

Then there’s the watertight technique and the gargantuan patience, hallmarks of a great batsman that faced 31,258 deliveries in the sport’s toughest contest: Test Cricket. 

No other player since India’s famous #3 has come to face as many Test deliveries. A world record. 

The bigger question and perhaps one that must be asked - but isn’t somehow- is whether there’ll be another who will be quite prepared to do what Rahul India did for India and sans complaints. 

Rahul Dravid was never adamant but relished the opportunity to field in the slips. He kept wickets. He was prepared to be shoved down the order and when the task demanded, he accepted the challenge of opening the inning with glee. 

If there’s a series that’s a very visible evidence of one man doing it all for the team’s cause then it was India’s ill fated tour to England, circa 2011. While on the one hand India kept losing one game after the other, Rahul Dravid’s bat kept producing the runs; 461 of them including three centuries with one, a quintessentially indomitable one coming at the spiritual home of the game at the Lord’s cricket ground. 

On that tour, Dravid kept wickets only since Dhoni could bowl, he opened the inning since Gambhir was injured and the others in the side didn’t quite raise their hands up. 

What’s more? The technically correct bat emerged unbeaten on 146 having taken the guard at the very top of the other as others around him fell like ninepins.

The Tendulkar’s held on to their customary number 4. Dhoni came in at seven and Sehwag loved opening. But Dravid was the one willing to be adjusted; he was the colour white that could blend with any combination. 

In a sport where batsmen chase records and individual landmarks, Dravid chased glory and always for the team’s cause. 

The Karnataka man was prepared to merge with the tide for his country’s cause. It didn’t change from the day he faced his maiden test delivery during the 1996 outing that yielded 95 runs. 

It didn’t change when he departed for a well constructed 69 in his final ODI, circa September 2011. 

We love addressing the man who’s turned 50 today as The Wall when in truth he was akin to the oceanic water; resplendent, fluid and ever moving. 

But over and above the runs and the effect they had on the Indian team, one reckons, Dravid also stood for a sense of cricket that perhaps doesn’t exist today. 

To an era that perhaps can’t relate to anything much else besides the hard hitting world of T20 cricket, where big hits and waning attention spans are the order of the day, Dravid epitomised longevity. 

Not to forget, persistence! 

And dare one say, a sense of continuity about the game that once truly was the gentleman’s game; where one didn’t have to resort to mind games and verbatim, lewd expressions or taunts that became ugly or personal. 

In that sense, well and truly speaking, the man who collectively faced over 45,000 deliveries in international cricket (striking 48 centuries lest it is forgotten), is perhaps a bit of an antiquity to be rightly preserved in a museum. 

He’s a symbol of simplicity, a subject of study that’s much like a slowly unravelling novel themed on courage and self discovery not a page turning crime thriller, one that may perhaps seem utterly out of tune to a generation that’s about apps and emojis. 

But all that he is and all that he’ll ever be, one must regard Dravid as the man who was keen to play the part he was given for playing for the team meant everything to him. 

In an age about declining moral values, where else could one find such grandiose virtue? 

Hail, the Wall. 

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