Period beauty

My life on campus was bookended by 2 ICC World Cups - flagged off & wrapped up by the best & worst Indian WC campaigns of my lifetime, respectively. Being a fairly average student, there was no way I could have completed my course in the duration between 2 T20 World Cups, so you may safely assume I’m talking about the 50 over variety. It was a good time to be following the Men in Blue, and be proud of them too. It was a period when Indian cricket challenged stereotype and broke new ground. Overseas victories, foreign coaches, 3-pronged pace attacks, clinical finishers, agile fielders, verbal chutzpah – a few of them rarely seen in Indian cricket, the rest never before. And also, for the first time in more than a decade of unquestioned supremacy, India’s premier batsman no longer answered to the name of Sachin Tendulkar.

Writing a tribute to a great Test cricketer in the space between the IPL and the ICC World T20, may seem like bad timing, and an anachronism. Rahul Sharad Dravid can never be accused of the former, but the latter bears considerable veracity in his context. He stands out like Khadi in the age of denim. Yeoman, but not Superman. In a men’s hostel, you could always tell whether he was batting or not, from the noise coming out of the TV hall. The room which could rival Woodstock for chaos otherwise, resembled a Zen monastery when our man took guard. It is such a pity that his early dismissal, would be cheered with great enthusiasm, for it invariably meant the arrival of Tendulkar, even when the latter’s trough coincided with Dravid’s zenith.

Perhaps his body of work is so highly steeped in the cerebral, that it cannot be appreciated by those of us blessed with a lesser ken. Anointed “The Wall” very early in his career, the sobriquet was a double-edged sword; at best, a grudgingly allowed encomium, at worst, a grossly unfair euphemism. Stonewalling may have been his calling, but it certainly wasn’t his mojo. Unlike his contemporary champions of the long haul – Kallis & Chanderpaul – Dravid is beautiful to watch. The enchantment of his craft unfolds with the elaborate flourish of the bat as it describes a perfect arc and stays poised for battle at the top of the backlift, innocent of sex appeal and yet pregnant with period beauty. A focused countenance betrays precise calculations to decide the fate of the delivery. The bowler might be dignified by a response if the probe is deemed meritworthy, or simply ignored if the questions are an insult to a highly superior intellect. He wasn't born to play to the gallery. He serves a higher purpose, that of soothing the senses. Call him boring, call him a geek, and I'll call u blind, nay, stupid.

It is set in stone that almost every major Indian victory over the last 10 years has seen a sizable contribution from Dravid, if not a stellar one. But think of all the big individual scores and massive partnerships that Indian batting of recent vintage boasts of, and you'll find that most of them were mentored by Dravid. Not only has he starred in one of the most successful Indian batting line-ups ever, he has been its engine room; and Statsguru will back me up on this. Neither Tendulkar nor Laxman have put on more runs with anyone else than with Dravid. The Ganguly-Dravid axis is second best to the Ganguly-Tendulkar combine, but not by much. Sehwag and Gambhir bat exceedingly well together, but their separate associations with Dravid have averaged higher than their opening sorties with each other. 7 century partnerships with Gambhir, 9 with Sehwag, 10 with Ganguly, 11 with Laxman. And no other pair in 133 years of test cricket has put on more century stands than Dravid and Tendulkar (17). It goes to show that while SRT's sparkling constructions of the 90s stood lonely at the top amongst depressing ruins, Dravid is blessed with the unique ability to inspire his peers, sometimes to the extent of lesser men bettering him. Never mind the Fab Five, he has saved & won matches with fringe players like Wasim Jaffer, Dinesh Karthik, Deep Das Gupta & Sarandeep Singh for company. Of course, he is capable of playing last man standing too, as borne out by his classic over-my-dead-body heroics at Sabina Park.

His exemplary selflessness in agreeing to keep in LOIs to accommodate the 7th batsman, so very central to a highly successful strategy adopted by Sourav Ganguly, is well docuemnted. Then there's the small matter of his world record 193 Test catches. And I haven't even begun to gush over the paragon of virtue and epitome of probity that he is.

Some things in life are timeless. Classical music, gourmet food and period beauty never go out of style. You can add Rahul Dravid's name to that list.