4 reasons why Rahul Dravid is India's most underrated captain
In the ongoing millennium, Indian cricket gets defined and often compared between two distinct eras- The Sourav Ganguly era between 2000 and 2005 and the MS Dhoni era between 2007 and 2014 in Test Cricket and 2007 and 2016 in limited-overs cricket.
In between them, there was one other phase in Indian cricket which often gets forgotten because of one memory and one memory alone.
Rahul Dravid would arguably go down as India's greatest ever Test cricketer and would also be in the list of the finest Indian ODI batsmen, but whenever the question of his captaincy tenure comes up, only one event props up- the infamous maiden round exit from the 2007 50-over World Cup in the Caribbean.
However, while that remains the single biggest disappointment in Dravid's otherwise memorable ODI career, there were aspects in his tenure when India went forward and a lot of them never come in the forefront when one recalls his time at the helm.
Here are four reasons why he was perhaps the most underrated captain India have ever had:
The idea of the five-bowler theory
One of the things Dravid's predecessor- Sourav Ganguly- preached a lot during his time as the India captain was to have an additional proper batsman lower down the order and opt for a mere four bowlers down the order.
In order to have that luxury, Dravid took up wicket-keeping duties and Mohammad Kaif got his opportunity at Number 7. The theory paid off most famously on the evening of the 13th of July 2002 when Kaif and Yuvraj Singh rescued India and helped pull off one of the most sensational victories in the history of India's limited-overs cricket.
However, under Dravid, that line of thinking took a backseat, primarily because of his own theory of how India needed it's bowlers to rise to the occasion and deliver victories and not just the batsman. Often in limited-overs cricket, India went in five proper batsmen, with Irfan Pathan contributing with both bat and ball and had four mainstream bowlers, usually containing two fast bowlers and two spinners.
It's a theory which current captain Virat Kohli has employed with Hardik Pandya playing as the seam bowling all-rounder aiding four other frontline bowlers.