What kind of first ball do you like to receive? Are you happier leaving it, or do you like it hitting the middle of your bat?
I have thought about this. All that I am thinking at that moment is that I want to be there for the second ball. Of course, I would love a full toss on leg stump. It’s always nice to feel the ball in the middle of the bat, but at the beginning of an innings it’s good to be able to leave as many balls as possible. It gives you a sense of where your off stump is. It gives you the confidence that you won’t be forced to play a lot of balls that you don’t have to play.
How you do you plan an innings?
I have had a look at the wicket earlier, so I kind of know my stroke options. I know the things that I should not do. I also have chats with other batsmen in the team to see if their reading of the wicket matches mine. For instance, on the first morning of a Test match, cover-driving is not always the best option, because the ball is doing a bit. So I might think that I’ll try to hang on till tea maybe, before I use that shot. Of course, if I get a half-volley, I will drive it. But it is not a percentage shot in the morning. You need to be flexible. You might think the pitch will behave in a certain way, and it can turn out to be completely different.
In India the stroke-making options are very limited. It’s very difficult to generate power on the square-of-the-wicket strokes. Places like Australia, England and South Africa really give you a lot of freedom with your strokeplay; once you are set, you can really play all your shots.
While batting, are you always looking at the ball? I mean not only from the bowler’s hand but also tracking it from the wicketkeeper’s gloves?
I do that sometimes. Particularly if I am struggling with my concentration or if I want to take my focus away from negative thoughts. I might say, I will just watch the ball for the next couple of overs. Sometimes telling yourself to concentrate doesn’t work, so you try to focus on something else.
Concentration is one of the strongest aspects of your game. Is that something you’ve always had?
Some of it is natural but a lot comes with practice. I always try to work on it in the nets. I always treat nets as a match. It’s very rarely that I would have a casual net, just to knock a few balls around. I play every ball in the nets like I would in a match. I really hate getting out in the nets. I create the sort of intensity that I would need in a match. That helps my concentration. If I think the conditions will help swing and seam in a match, I will try to leave as much as I can outside the off stump in the nets. Driving and edging in the nets is not okay with me.
Can you describe how it is facing a ball in the middle? Sachin Tendulkar once said that the ideal mental condition is to have a blank mind.
It is possible to blank your mind. That’s the ideal situation, and that’s the challenge. If you can blank the mind, suspend your thoughts and just watch the ball and react to it without cluttering your thinking, that’s the ideal situation. It happens at times, when you are playing well, you are confident… but it comes and goes. During a long innings, you have patches of 30 or 40 minutes when you think that you had that. It’s the closest you feel to being in the zone.
How does being in the zone affect your batting?
To start with, you pick up the line and length of the ball more clearly, and much earlier. And then you are able to respond to each ball purely on its merit. The best batting happens when you are batting in the present. It’s about controlling the controllables. You can’t control the last ball or the next ball, but if you can be fully present to play the ball at hand, bring all your mind, your concentration, to respond to that ball, then that’s it. You are not thinking about the state of the match, the condition of the pitch or the previous ball. Your mind, energy, hands and eyes are responding only to that moment. It’s the closest you can come to purity; it’s a special feeling.
How can you create this state?
You can’t. If you could, you would always be in that state, because you know how it feels. It’s something you aspire to, but you can’t create it consciously, and sometimes you even do well without it. Sometimes you can have your fears and your doubts and still come away scoring runs. But you can’t reach that state if you are tired. If you are physically exhausted, it’s difficult to focus your mind. That’s why physical fitness is so important. The fitter you are, the greater your chances of reaching that condition.
What goes through your mind when you benefit from a dropped catch?
You’re glad to still be there. But you try to put it out of your mind and focus on the next ball.
And when you get hit?
It makes me more determined. It’s like a wake-up call. I’ve been hit badly only a couple of times, and it has made me fight and concentrate harder. It happened in the West Indies [2001-02], and the situation demanded that I stayed in.
But you know, I really admire the cricketers who played fast bowling without helmets. To play that quality of fast bowling without protection is a very special thing. I can never imagine playing fast bowling without a helmet because I grew up playing with helmets, and how I would have reacted without a helmet, I don’t know. But batsmen of that era – even the other equipment wasn’t good then – I have huge respect for them.
What was the state of your mind on the morning of the last day at Adelaide?
We had a quiet confidence. We knew we had a great chance to win and we knew we could do it. Of course, we were a bit nervous, and it was natural. We had lost a lot of matches we should have won in the past. I was quite determined to not let that happen again. It’s a sick feeling to think that you could have won. We have worked so hard as a team, all of us, John [Wright], Andrew [Leipus], Greg [King], so we had to win.
Did you tell yourself that you wanted to be there at the end?
I told myself in the morning that I needed to do whatever it took, that whatever happened I would try to be there at the end. I had to give it all I had. You tell yourself that all the time, that you always want to be there at the end. It doesn’t always happen. But it happened that day, and it was a special feeling.
Has the enormity of the achievement sunk in yet? Are you aware this might be your personal slice of history, that the Adelaide Test might be remembered as Dravid’s Test?
The real significance of it can only be judged after a few years. A few months ago I was told I would always be remembered for that 148 at Headingley [in 2002]. I’m not done yet. Only after I am done will I know what my best moment was.
Sambit Bal is the editor of ESPNcricinfo. This interview was first published in Wisden Asia Cricket magazine
In the words of his peers
It is not an exaggeration to say that a whole strand of the game – a rich vein that runs through the game’s poetic heart – departs the scene with India’s greatest-ever No. 3. Playing T20 cricket won’t teach anyone to become the next Rahul Dravid.
Ed Smith, A gentleman champion of timeless steel
and dignity, page 60
[ 8 ]
The rock around whom the rest moved
JOHN WRIGHT
L et me begin with a story. In 2000, Kent were playing in Lancashire, and one evening I went out with Rahul for a meal. It was his first year as a county pro and the main difficulty he seemed to be having in adjusting to England was this business of driving from city to city. We drove into town but there weren’t many parking spaces to be found. The only empty spots we could see were in a parking permit zone. It was late in the evening; who would be bothered, I thought. I told Rahul it was fine if he parked right there. He asked me if I was sure, and since we were both hungry, I said, “Of course.”
We came out of the restaurant after dinner and the car was gone. It had been towed away and he had to get it out of the lock-up. He is, of course, a very calm and smart guy, so right from that stage, I think, he knew never to listen to everythi
ng I said.
Kent was a long experience of matches, meals and car rides, but our paths had crossed much earlier, in 1996, when I first met Sourav and him. I was hugely impressed with both of them. Rahul was a very good player, very sound and correct. Technically he stood out. We had seen the likes of Sachin Tendulkar but not someone like Rahul. You saw that he could play outside India. He looked very good in defence and knew how to put together an innings. I thought this guy was going to be a really great player. He was talented and humble but confident.
When I went to Kent, I wanted to sign players who either wanted to make it or wanted to use the experience: players who were hungry, not those who wanted to come and get a contract. We were having some problems with our batting and needed an overseas professional to bolster it, while Rahul wanted to experience county cricket, to try to make himself a better player. I knew he would not only produce runs but would be an extremely good influence on our young players, like Robert Key and Ed Smith. It would help them to watch Rahul train. He had a tough year but he met with the expectations people had of him. He was everything Kent needed then.
A lot of people ask me what role he had in me getting the India job. I have to say it was all very casual, not orchestrated in any way. I remember telling Sourav and Rahul that if the job came up I’d like to be considered, but it was the board’s decision and was beyond them. What I do know is, Rahul had seen how I coached, so it may have put me in the frame.
Being India’s first foreign coach and living in the country could sometimes be a lonely job. Sourav and I had very different styles of working, and I think Rahul and I went back a longer way. I don’t remember ever having to calm Rahul down, and he was someone I could always talk to if I needed a hand. If Sourav turned up late and we were about to leave for a tour, Rahul and I would do the press conference. We always knew that.
He took over in Pakistan in 2004 when Sourav was injured, and won that first Test in Multan. He made a strong call to declare when Sachin was on 190-odd. I was aware milestones were important, and yes, we had sent a message out to Sachin that he should hurry up in getting to the double. Rahul had known the consequences when he took the decision.
He always had wonderful leadership qualities, and since he had never pushed for the captaincy, the dressing-room atmosphere stayed fine. He was also the rock of our batting, the one around whom everything else could move. You had Laxman and Tendulkar, but with Dravid at the crease the dressing room felt very calm. The only thing he used to worry about was his running between the wickets, particularly when he batted with Sourav. There were times I thought that was the only way they would get him out.
It helped me hugely to have Rahul around. Sourav was great as captain – when I look back at it now, Sourav brought qualities to the team that were rare – but the issue was that both of us were very emotional people. We were very driven, and Rahul was a real calming influence. It very quickly became the three of us. We used to bounce a lot of things off each other. But Sourav was the leader; we would argue and he would do exactly what he liked.
Much has been written about Rahul’s game and his personality, and how he managed to remain grounded even in the circus of Indian cricket – but that’s fairly well known, so I’d like to reveal a part of his nature he managed to keep masked by generally being a good person. He was an absolutely fierce competitor. People forget how ruthless he was out in the middle. You can’t do what he did without having inner resolve. I think it stems from his wonderful defensive technique, but I am sure he also had the confidence in his ability to survive when the bowler was on top. If he decided to defend, there weren’t many ways people could get him out.
I think Rahul always wanted to be – and turned out to be – one of the great batsmen in world cricket and in the history of Indian batting. There were Sunny Gavaskar and Sachin, brilliant players in different ways, and then there was Rahul. It is now beginning to strike me that Rahul was always acutely aware of how many runs he had got and what his record was. We never talked about that, but you don’t get runs if you don’t have some goals.
I have never seen a more dedicated cricketer than Rahul in the nets. He was able to simulate a game situation, not just by going through the motions but by making every ball count. It was like he didn’t want to get out even in the nets. In a situation when he had three or four bowlers going at him, he wanted to compete. He was always testing himself and worked on whatever needed the time, like his technique, or on sorting out some kink.
One of the things I found interesting while watching Rahul play in his late 20s was what he was able to get out of the experience and the opposition. He never made the same mistake twice. He learnt hugely in one-day cricket – which probably was an area he had to work at a little bit more than others. He had been dropped from the Indian one-day team and then went on to come back and have a very good World Cup. He was a great student of the game and never made the same mistake twice. He had all the shots but he worked hard at turning the strike over, getting the singles, and dropping the ball on the on side, when normally you might put it on the off side. At the start people would try to slow him down, but then he worked out a way so they couldn’t do that. He also probably improved his ability to loft the ball.
For people like him, what you do is far more important than what you say. Kumble, Tendulkar, Laxman and Dravid were very professional. When Sehwag, Yuvraj, Zaheer Mohammad Kaif and Harbhajan came into the team they were all young boys. I think Sourav counselled them emotionally, and they learnt a lot from how Rahul and the others practised. It had a very powerful effect on all of them.
Maybe his type of batsman is going now. There is probably Alastair Cook, if you’re looking for a comparison, but few others spring to mind. Rahul is the most obvious example of what you want in a defensive No. 3. He was called “Jam” because his father worked for a jam company, but I felt a better name for him was “gem”. People trusted him.
John Wright, India’s coach between 2000 and 2005, spoke to ESPNcricinfo senior editor Sharda Ugra
Dravid became the second-oldest batsman to score over 1000 Test runs in a calendar year when he made 1145 runs in 2011, when almost 39. Don Bradman had scored 1025 runs in 1948 when he was nearly 40.
[ 9 ]
A gentleman champion of timeless steel and dignity
ED SMITH
When Rahul Dravid walked into the dressing room of the St Lawrence ground in Canterbury on a cold spring morning, you could tell he was different from all the others. He did not swagger with cockiness or bristle with macho competitiveness. He went quietly round the room, shaking the hand of every Kent player – greeting everyone the same, from the captain to the most junior. It was not the mannered behaviour of a seasoned overseas professional; it was the natural courtesy of a real gentleman. We met a special human being first, an international cricketer second.
The cricketer was pretty good, too. Dravid joined Kent for the 2000 season, and I spent much of it at No. 4, coming in one after Dravid (not that he was the departing batsman very often). That meant I had some wonderful opportunities to bat alongside the player who became the highest-scoring No. 3 of all time.
What did I learn? I learnt that real toughness takes many different forms. Dravid could appear shy and slightly vulnerable off the pitch; in the middle, you sensed a depth of resilience. Many overseas players liked to set themselves apart from the county pros – as though they had to swear more loudly and clap their hands more violently to prove that international cricketers were tougher than the rest. Not Dravid. He never paraded his toughness. It emerged between the lines of his performances. Instead, he always talked about learning, about gathering new experiences – as though his cricketing education wasn’t complete, as though there were many more strands of his craft to hone. His journey, you could tell, was driven by self-improvement.
One word has attached itself to Dravid wherever he h
as gone: gentleman. The word is often misunderstood. Gentlemanliness is not mere surface charm – the easy lightness of confident sociability. Far from it: the real gentleman doesn’t run around flattering everyone in sight; he makes sure he fulfils his duties and obligations without drawing attention to himself or making a fuss. Gentlemanliness is as much about restraint as it is about appearances. Above all, a gentleman is not only courteous, he is also constant: always the same, whatever the circumstances or the company.
In that sense, Dravid is a true gentleman. Where many sportsmen flatter to deceive, Dravid runs deep. He is a man of substance, morally serious and intellectually curious. For all his understatement, he couldn’t fail to convey those qualities to anyone who watched him properly.
I last bumped into Dravid late in 2011 at a charity dinner at the Sydney Cricket Ground. He was the same as he always has been – warm, self-deprecating, curious about the lives of others. As ever, he made a point of asking about my parents – their health and happiness – although he has never met them. Family and friendship, you sense, are central to his life and his values.
Rahul Dravid: Timeless Steel Page 5