I am more a failure than a success, says Rahul Dravid
'Failure' is one word that can never be used to describe Rahul Dravid
What's the story?
Former Indian captain and batsman, Rahul Dravid, dissected his career in his speech for the up-and-coming athletes of the GoSports Foundation and talked about the importance of handling failure with the right mindset.
"Back in my time, a half-century was considered a good score. Across formats, I batted 604 times for India. I didn't cross 50 runs 410 times out of those innings. I failed a lot more times than I succeeded. I'm more a failure than a success, So, I'm quite qualified to talk about failure," he said.
Furthering his point, the 44-year-old stated, "Let's look at the best batsman of my generation: Sachin Tendulkar. He scored a hundred 100s. But he didn't cross the 50-run milestone in 517 out of the 781 times he batted. So he too was more of a failure than a success, if that's even possible."
"One of the things that I picked up from the great players who I have played with, and the athletes I know, is their attitude towards failure. They know how to fail well," he said, while guiding the aspiring Olympians in the ideal direction.
In case you didn't know..
GoSports Foundation is an NGO that works towards the development of aspiring Olympics and Paralympics athletes in the country. Dravid is an integral part of the foundation, along with sporting giants like with Abhinav Bindra and Pullela Gopichand.
It offers various scholarship and mentorship programs for budding international athletes.
The details
Dravid emphasized the importance of learning and growing through failures in sport.
The legendary cricketer believes that pushing failures under the carpet does more damage than good to an athlete's development. He urged the young athletes to embrace their mistakes with a positive frame of mind.
Those assembled at the venue listened with rapt attention as the former Indian Number 3 talked about understanding weaknesses and analysing personal skills through individual failures.
What's next?
India's youth cricket team, which is under Dravid's tutelage, will soon take the centre stage in New Zealand for the ICC U19 World Cup. They will be lead by the Mumbai batsman, Prithvi Shaw.
The GSF will continue to enlarge its umbrella and undertake the mentorship and development of more and more sportsmen.
Author's take
Dravid's unique take on failure and the benefits that you can extract from it shows why he amassed from than 13,000 Test runs for the country in his glittering career. This approach helped him scale immense heights in 16 years, and his achievements are a testament to the functionality of the same.
The athletes of the programme are extremely lucky to receive such pearls of wisdom from the likes of Dravid, Bindra and Gopichand. These lessons will only add to their overall development and enhance their abilities to a greater extent.