Why the IPL needs a batsman like Rahul Dravid

This is an age of change… an era when cricket is evolving – the style, the technique, the way cricket is being played, everything. This is such a revolutionary age for cricket!

But even when you are on a changing spree, replacing the old furniture of your house, wall paintings, toiletries, in fact everything – there is one thing which remains as it is. The WALL! At the most, you can change the colour of that WALL but you can’t change the wall altogether! For that, you will have to change the house. For Dravid – the Wall – to change, cricket will have to change into some other sport. Till it is played with a piece of willow and a leather ball with 22 men on the field, Dravid will remain the way he has been for almost 20 years now!

How many times in a T20 game do you see a batsman play into the ‘V’? In more than 3 hours of gruelling T20 action, there are not many instances when you get to behold the elegance of a batsman bending on his knees as if he is caressing the ball and whispering in its ear, telling it to reach the fence.

With no offence to anyone, terminologies like leather-hunter and demolisher mean that the elegant play, which had technique as its bedrock, is on the verge of extinction. But just when you see that art fading away, there are people like Rahul Dravid who, despite having quit the international scene, are willing to give back to the game by displaying the same array of strokes and gentleness to great effect.

Captaining a team – Rajasthan Royals – at the age of 40 in one of the most prestigious T20 leagues of the world and scoring effortlessly by applying the same old-fashioned tactics is what makes Rahul Dravid the man he is. The rigours of this format are such that it propels you to be different, to be wild. And ultimately, you are not that gentleman cricketer that you once aspired to be when you first carried that kit bag to the academy, dressed up in complete whites.

Over the years, we have seen so many innovations, so many shots being invented and used to full effect. How many shots did Dravid invent? Probably none! He appears to be one of those diagrams from the text book of cricket, completely orthodox and traditional! But it hurts that there is a dearth of replicas of that diagram in modern day cricket. We need more Dravidesque figures so that the future generations remember this is how cricket used to be played once. People rate Cheteshwar Pujara as one; but sadly, he is not.  He does not feature in that T20 side of Bangalore, because he cannot do it the Dravid way. Accept it, if Pujara has to score freely, he will have to take a leaf out of Kohli’s or Yuvraj’s book. This is why Dravid needs to play longer. He needs to be there until he establishes the fact that what he did and continues to do was perhaps old-fashioned and boring (for many), but it is still the heart of cricket. He can get bowled on several occasions but still it is he who ruled the roost, who taught and still teaches us how to humiliate a bowler in a respectful manner. This game is in a desperate need of more Dravids to keep its essence alive, but as the situation stands right now, we are not sure how many of the current crop will go on to show us what this Bangalorean did. All we can do is hope that he keeps us glued to the TV sets for at least a few more years to come.