WHY NOT RAHUL DRAVID

WHY NOT RAHUL DRAVID

This is primarily because of his penchant for ultra-defensive batting and the special quality of sending the ball like a bullet to the fielder, unfailingly failing to find the gap between fielders. His superb capacity to farm the bowling while in partnership with well-established batsmen such as Tendulkar as a matter of habitual practice set him apart from the others in Ganguly's famous team as one who could not only bore the spectators to death but throw his partners into off-strike disarray as well which surely cannot be deemed congenial to the health of a game in progress.

Batting in Bradman's opinion is not merely keeping the ball out of the wicket or not getting caught out but scoring fast heavily so as to create the condition and afford time enough for the bowlers to bowl out the opposition twice. In this regard Rahul Dravid was like others of his ilk an abysmal failure. Vijay Hazare was another such plodder but has been here preferred to Dravid, keeping his ability to play genuine pace of the likes of Lindwall, Miller and Trueman at their peak better.

The early years of maturity of a cricketing nation throw up performers with the bat and the ball who in comparison to their successors of like or near-like merit generally have poorer averages. This is so because a weak cricketing nation seldom can assume ascendancy in a test match and, thus, produces poorer results which reflect on its players' statistics as well. An Ashwin, thus, outmatches a Kapil Dev even as the latter outshines his predecessor in Vinoo Mankad apparently, judging by crude statistical estimations without going into depth-analysis of the same. Where it comes to winning test matches, one must remember that in the early years a nation is more prone to losing them or at best drawing them rather than winning them, and this is so because of the relatively lower evolution of the game in the said nation which goes to account for its poorer performance even though there be outstanding individual players like C.K.Nayadu, Vijay Merchant, Vijay Hazare, Vinoo Mankad, Mushtaq Ali and the like, as in India's case. Hence, to posit the test century-test match win ratio argument in many a case is flawed. One must take the game's relative development in any particular period into due consideration before hazarding unwarranted opinion which may only in terms of truth backfire.

Cricket, after all, like other outdoor games is a spectator sport despite its otherwise serious intrinsic element. Thus, style of batting, speed in scoring runs, technique in defense and offense, shot selection and strokeplay -- all these have their respective roles to play. The spectators pay to see entertaining cricket with relatively rapid scoring spicing up an afternoon and not a dour, defensive exercise in belaboured boredom.

When the history of test cricket is recalled from merely the pages of incompletely chronicled score-sheets, the lesser performances of yesteryears which had induced spectators to doze off are held in the same regard, often even higher, than the brighter ones that had sent a thrill through the crowd in the stands. A Neville Cardus but records lavishly in immaculate musical metric the exploits of a Jack Gregory on the green when he smashed a 70-ball century -- the fastest one in test matches till then -- rather than the dour batting of a Bailey or a self-reflective, slow crafting of innings by a Cowdrey. Thus, a Compton is favoured over a Barrington in estimation of batting skill and cricketing value even decades after their deeds are done, for in persisting memory of the cricketing connoisseur the former remains lush green even as the meadow he had lighted up one summer afternoon. Same with Laxman and Dravid, although they were both in 300-plus partnership more than once when the former lit up the stadia while the latter held guard. The idea then lies in what one seeks in a game of cricket -- a dour, defensive, lacklustre batting display or a brilliant exhibition of breathtaking strokeplay?

Statistics reveals significantly but conceals vitally as well. Here steps in analysis. The times and the prevalent conditions of play, the relative strengths of the opposition, the quality of bowling -- fast and slow -- faced by contending batsmen, the cricketing gear available, and last but not the least, the state of evolution of the game in the concerned country at the specific periods of time for players belonging to such to be correctly compared. The gross revelation of statistics in this regard may be tempting to gobble up and come to quick and flawed estimation of relative player-strength but the subtle concealment of statistics must surely play truant with all such superficial understanding.

Cricket, indeed, is a most wonderful game. It has its objective side like other sports. But it has its subjective side as well unlike many of them which makes it so intensely personal despite it being a team game from both the player's perspective and that of the spectator. There is something called cricketing lore unlike that of any other sport which makes cricket a living sport despite the deeds of the day having been done long back. This vibrancy in the act of the hour and its living, lingering memory makes cricket timeless and transcending death despite it having had its share of unfortunate deaths through batsmen having been hit on the head by the shooting short ball. But such accidental aberrations apart, the game provides seminal moments which are enshrined in its history and which become in course of time folklore. Such episodes of scintillating batting, spells of spectacular bowling, leaps and dives to scoop up impossible catches or cause a run-out make for the stuff of legends which remain in cricketing lore for posterity to brood on and attempt visualising what the sunlit yesteryears must have been. In this there is an ephemeral and an enduring, a vanishing and a withstanding, a fleeting and a lasting that accounts for the mystique of cricket. These must be considered before shallow assumptions spoil discourse in this beautiful game of the summer greens. It is as much fact as fantasy, as much prose as poetry, as much the weight and contour of the leaf as its subtler transpiration and photosynthesis that makes cricket the beautiful game it is.

Cricket has its tangibles and intangibles both. It has its transience and transcendence, its gross and its subtle, all measure for measure in a balance that is brought about by its likeness to life. The aesthetics of cricket outweighs its crude practicality of mere winning at any cost, scoring in any manner, or, as in Dravid's case, not scoring at all for long periods, preferring to guard wicket instead while the game peters on. These and so many such considerations separate the great from the good and herein lies discrimination and discretion in judgement about individual excellence in cricketing terms that go to determining credibility for selection to an all-time test eleven. Rahul Dravid fails in this regard for reasons amply clarified above.

Written by Sugata Bose

COMMENTS :

Sugata Bose @Utsav Datta : You are absolutely right. Wait for my next article on Dravid to quite a reverse sweeping effect, a la shot that got him out for 270, forcing the pace in Pakistan in the third Test that India won under his leadership, one in which he with exemplary courage of conviction as captain sent Tendulkar back to the pavillion in a declared innings at 194 not out after the latter had kept on crawling towards his unfinished attempt at a double hundred. That was a singular case of team over individual in Indian cricketing annals, one that, however, did not go well with that ultimate team-man, Sachin Tendulkar, who did show his disappointment and even displeasure at being denied a double hundred when batting on dubiously for hours on end towards an inconsequential scoring effort, a charge that is more often than not, and often so unfairly, leveled against Dravid himself when the latter to all intents and purposes grafted his way to secure his team's safety albeit handicapped by his temperamental and technical slowness in the attempt to doing so.

Sugata Bose @Utsav Datta : I hope you are not just making casual comments based on predisposition but are also making an earnest effort to go through my writings, insignificant though they may be in your estimation. I will then consider cricketing literacy in India well served by me in even the meanest measure, for the literary element is what takes cricket from the playing field to a perennial green off it. Cricketing lore is wedded to cricket literature. Hence, do read on.