Rahul Dravid: Playing beyond the prize

The boy stood on the burning deck
Whence all but he had fled;
The flame that lit the battle’s wreck
Shone round him o’er the dead.
Yet beautiful and bright he stood,
As born to rule the storm;
A creature of heroic blood,
A proud, though childlike form.

- Mrs. Felicia Dorothea Hemans

The burning deck laid low beneath the 12-year-old Casabianca’s feet, almost in servitude to the boy’s unfazed visage in the face of an English invasion going gory. The English sailors, battling an adrenaline rush gained by the macabre sights on offer, stood stupefied watching the boy manfully perish to the inferno.

Centuries later, Father Time, perched proudly atop the Lord’s Cricket Ground, watched a 23-year-old score one of the most pristine 95 runs ever scored in the history of Test cricket. It was rather unfair then, that some years later this very 23-year-old came to be labelled something as dull as “the Wall” when everything about him was as beautiful as the beleaguered Casabianca.

He made friends with adversity, looked danger in the eye, and as Mrs. Felicia would have agreed, he was definitely a creature of heroic blood. He was all this and much more to Indian cricket and went by the name Rahul Sharad Dravid.

Dravid braved several burning decks during a breathtaking career, perishing almost never and braving invasions of all shades. While Casabianca brandished his brand of beauty atop the blazing ship in his own inimitable way, Dravid’s batsmanship over the years guffawed at the frailty of opposition aimed at him.

Deep down, even though we sobbed at yet another Indian batting collapse in the making, we lightened up at the thought of “the Wall” packing a punch, with the punctuality of a sunrise. His formative years in international cricket saw him transitioning from a slow starter to a stroke-maker most imperious. In those early years, Rahul Dravid a.k.a. ‘Jammy’ was hated by male fans for his “slow” scoring and loved by female fans for his good looks.

Time has a funny way of dislodging opinions though. While the female fans kept burgeoning in number, the men too joined the fold after realisation dawned upon them. Dravid had time and again proven to be the linchpin of famous Indian Test and ODI victories. The arduous 180 against the all-conquering Steve Waugh-led Aussies in the epochal 2001 Kolkata Test, made after wading through cramps, endless masseur sessions, trademark Aussie “chin-music” and the bulldozing weight of expectations, sits pretty in everyone’s memory.

Rahul Dravid manned the number 3 spot in the Indian batting line-up with distinction. Dravid is also one of the two batsmen to score 10,000 runs at a single batting position, and all of them were made with skill hardly seen before. For the uninitiated, the No. 3 spot is the standard against which all willow-wielders are evaluated. And Dravid could be the standard himself in the modern era.

It is said of him that he could walk on broken glass if his team ever wanted him to. To tell the truth, he gladly donned the wicket-keeping gloves for the ODI team ahead of the 2003 World Cup in a bid by the team management to accommodate an extra batsman.

This move was a masterstroke and capped India’s stupendous run to the finals of that tournament. His clinical fitness levels ensured he easily stepped up to the rigours of keeping and then turned out impressively at what his forte is: scoring big.

Whenever the Indian cricket team would set foot abroad in the early 2000s, plaintive-looking faces would be the norm and Jammy would be the go-to man for everyone on the field. His 76 against a Shane Bond-led bowling unit in the 2002 Wellington Test was a blockbuster in the eyes of the cricketing fraternity.

While every other ribcage in the team became a sitting duck on a minefield of a pitch, Dravid’s ribs bristled with skill and temerity. He went about hooking and pulling with astounding ease. His ravishing square cuts gave one the idea that this man loved the scent of battle. His was an in-your-face innings essayed rather bluntly, with the message loud and clear.