A whole strand of the game - a wealthy vein that runs via cricket's poetic coronary heart - departs the scene with one of the all-time top notch No. 3s
When Rahul Dravid walked into the dressing room of the St Lawrence floor in Canterbury on a cold spring morning, you can tell he turned into exceptional from all of the others. He did not swagger with cockiness or bristle with macho competitiveness. He went quietly round the room, shaking the hand of each Kent player - greeting all and sundry the identical, from the captain to the maximum junior. It changed into not the mannered behaviour of a seasoned distant places expert; it turned into the herbal courtesy of a real gentleman. We met a special individual first, an international cricketer second.
The cricketer became quite suitable, too. Dravid joined Kent for the 2000 season, and I spent a great deal of it at range 4, coming in one after Dravid (no longer that he become the departing batsman very often). That meant I had a few exquisite possibilities to bat alongside the player who became the highest scoring No. 3 of all time.
What did I analyze? I learnt that actual durability takes many one-of-a-kind paperwork. Dravid ought to seem shy and barely susceptible off the pitch; within the center, you sensed a depth of resilience. Many overseas gamers preferred to set themselves other than the county professionals - as although they had to swear greater loudly and clap their fingers greater violently to prove that international cricketers have been more difficult than the relaxation. Not Dravid. He by no means paraded his durability - it emerged among the strains of his performances. Instead, he continually talked about mastering, about gathering new experiences - as though his cricketing schooling wasn't whole, as even though there have been many extra strands of his craft to hone. His adventure, you could tell, changed into driven by self-development.
One phrase has attached itself to Dravid wherever he has long past: gentleman. The phrase is often misunderstood. Gentlemanliness isn't mere floor allure - the clean lightness of assured sociability. Far from it: the actual gentleman does not run around flattering everybody in sight, he makes sure he fulfils his responsibilities and responsibilities without drawing interest to himself or making a fuss. Gentlemanliness is as a whole lot approximately restraint as it is about appearances. Above all, a gentleman isn't simplest courteous, he is also steady: constantly the identical, regardless of the instances or the corporation.
In that experience, Dravid is a real gentleman. Where many sportsmen flatter to misinform, Dravid runs deep. He is a man of substance, morally extreme and intellectually curious. For all his understatement, he couldn't fail to deliver the ones traits to everybody who watched him nicely.
I closing ran into Dravid late closing yr at a charity dinner on the Sydney Cricket Ground. He changed into the same as he continually has been - warm, self-deprecating, curious about the lives of others. As ever, he made a point of asking approximately my parents - their fitness and happiness - although he has by no means met them. Family and friendship, you experience, are principal to his lifestyles and his values.
In the q&a that observed his speech, one answer got close to the center of his persona. What encouraged him nevertheless, in any case these years and so many runs? Dravid said that as a schoolboy, he remembered many kids who had at least as a good deal desire to play professional cricket as he did - they attended each camp and internet session, regardless of what the fee or the issue of getting there. But you could tell - from just one ball bowled or one shot performed - that they genuinely did not have the skills to make it. He knew he changed into specific. "I changed into given a skills to play cricket," Dravid defined. "I do not know why I was given it. But I became. I owe it to all those who desire it were them to provide of my first-class, each day."
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| Rahul Dravid |
What a excellent inversion of the usual delusion informed via expert sportsmen: that they'd unexceptional skills and made it to the top simplest because they labored tougher. Dravid spoke the reality. Yes, he labored difficult. But the tough work became pushed by means of the preference to offer full expression to a God-given expertise.
On the sector, what set Dravid aside become an extraordinary combination of technical excellence, intellectual toughness and emotional restraint. He become constrained in party, just as he became confined in disappointment - exactly because the real gentleman have to be. And yet his emotional strength of will co-existed with fierce competitiveness and country wide pride.
Dravid has single-handedly disproved the absurd argument that tantrums and yobbishness are a signal of "how plenty you care" or, worse nevertheless, "how a great deal you want it". Dravid changed into rarely outdone in terms of starvation or passion. And he become by no means outdone in phrases of behaviour or dignity. Those dual elements of his persona - the dignified human being and the passionate competitor - ran alongside every other, the one by no means allowed to intrude with the opposite. He knew where the bounds have been, in existence and in cricket.
I am an optimist by nature. I do not assume that game is forever declining from a few mythical golden age. But every now and then I can't keep away from the feel that a certain form of sportsman is an more and more endangered species. I actually have that feeling now, as Dravid pronounces his innings closed. No longer will he take guard with that familiar hint of politeness, even deference. No longer will he increase his bat to the group as though he is surely thanking them for his or her applause - the bat tilted outwards in acknowledgement of the supporters, no longer just waved frantically in an orgy of private birthday celebration. No longer will he stand in the beginning slip, concise and specific in his moves - a cricketer first, an athlete second. No longer will the excessive Dravid back-swing and meticulous footwork link this generation with the first-rate technicians of the beyond.
It could be great to argue that no cricketer is irreplaceable, that sport is defined by using continuity in place of complete stops, that there'll soon be any other Dravid, every other champion cricketer of undying metal and dignity. But I do not assume there might be. I suppose Dravid could be remembered as the last in a notable culture of batsmen whose instincts and temperament have been perfectly suited to Test healthy cricket. It isn't an exaggeration to say that an entire strand of the game - a wealthy vein that runs thru the game's poetic coronary heart - departs the scene with India's greatest ever No. 3. Playing Twenty20 cricket won't train every person to become the following Rahul Dravid.
In years to come, perhaps too past due, we may additionally realize what we've got lost: the civility, craft and dignity that Dravid delivered to each cricket healthy in which he performed.