Rahul Dravid has played his final one-dayer. It was a dead-rubber in Cardiff. And India lost. It wasn’t meant to be this way. He was supposed to steer India to a World Cup final, smash a hundred in the title clash and sign off with a victory lap. But that’s just me dreaming.
Reality is much harder – he suffered the ignominy of a first-round exit in the World Cup, was dropped when he shouldn’t have been, was picked when he shouldn’t have been and finished his one-day career with a most forgettable series. At least he finished on his own terms.
When it comes to Dravid and one-dayers, I could never see a fairytale end. It all boils down to the eternal lament. At some point in their lives, fans of Dravid have stared blankly at a ceiling and been overcome with existential angst as they pondered a simple question: Why doesn’t Dravid ever get his due? (The follow-up to this question is an interrelated: Why is Dravid treated so shabbily?)
Ever since his Test debut at Lord’s, when he was overshadowed by his fellow debutant, Dravid seems to bat with this lament as the background score. Whatever he achieves doesn’t seem to be enough to gain enough people’s attention. A conversation about Dravid is incomplete without words like “under-appreciated” and “unsung”. These are often followed by a sigh. And the tone usually softens.
I have stared at several ceilings. Yet I have been confused with my angst. Sure, unlike you-know-who, Dravid doesn’t have hordes of reporters standing outside his house on his birthday (Jan 11 in case you’re interested), his little finger isn’t hyper-analysed if it’s injured and he’s not the most searched name on Cricinfo on 362 days of the year (I am convinced that there are thousands of people who wake up every morning and begin searching ‘Sachin Tendulkar’ on the internet).
But does all this translate to being ‘under-appreciated’? Hasn’t Dravid been immortalised by a number of his innings? The moment someone says Adelaide or Rawalpindi or Kingston or Headingley isn’t it Dravid that comes to mind? Several years from now won’t his efforts be one of the few things we will remember from this series whitewash in England? Haven’t writers crafted eulogies about his technique and temperament? Won’t we tell our kids about how the Draxman union could turn dust into gold?
Over time I found some answers. Dravid’s Test career is a totally different beast. He has owned many Tests and series. He may have lived in the shadows in his early years – especially the streak when he kept getting out in the 90s – but he has held his own for several years. People associate Dravid with some epic wins. A lot of people understand his tremendous value to the Test side. They acknowledge his greatness.
Dravid’s one-day career has been played out in a parallel universe. Take a look at this list. It speaks for the eternal lament. Go through the scorecards carefully, recall the games and try and remember your thoughts at each point.
A 153 in Hyderabad against New Zealand (his highest score) – Tendulkar top-scores; a 145 in Taunton in the World Cup match – Ganguly top-scores; a 107 in Chennai (his first hundred) – Anwar scores a historic 194; a 103 in Singapore – Ricardo Powell stuns India with a blistering 124; a 104 against Kenya in a World Cup match – Tendulkar returns from his father’s funeral and top-scores; an 84 against a rampaging Donald in Durban – India mess up a final; an ice-cool 44 that guides India to a win against Pakistan in a World Cup – Tendulkar produces one of the greatest innings of all time.
Dravid has 12 ODI hundreds. Only on six of those occasions was he the top-scorer for his side. And only on three of those six occasions did India go on to win. Somehow he was almost never the story. Remember his classy 99 in Karachi? It was drowned by Inzamam’s audacious 122 and a most sensational finish. Remember his crisis-averting 86 against Pakistan in Kanpur? It was forgotten after Afridi’s volcanic hundred a few hours later.
Cricket is a team sport but it’s players who turn into building blocks for the narratives. Teams win matches but it’s the individual brilliance that sticks in the memory. Throw up any game from the past and you will usually find an individual performance sticking out. Dravid in ODIs is usually not the one who leaps off the headlines, instead he’s often the focus of the second or third paragraph.
Rarely has a Dravid innings single-handedly defined a one-dayer. Most of his big knocks were masterful supporting acts, lessons in rebuilding and consolidation. They were played out in the middle overs and underpinned by working the gaps and rotating the strike. Of course there were some scorchers – like the 22-ball 50 against New Zealand in Hyderabad and the 63-ball 92 in Bristol – but these were usually part of run-gluts with others feasting too.
Dravid’s biggest contribution to India’s one-day side was his versatility, an attribute that is difficult to quantify in a scorecard. Between 1999 and 2006 he could adapt his batting to any position at any stage of the game – and this after a tough few years when he struggled to adjust to the vagaries of the one-day game. His role as a wicketkeeper offered the side the luxury of playing seven specialist batsman. His cool as a finisher not only won many games but also gave the top-order a free reign to attack.
I would love to see many of his ODI innings again but the hundred in 2006, when India were chasing 252 in Kingston on an oppressively humid day, remains close to my heart. To know how humid it was, consider this: I remember sitting in the open press box, sweat dripping onto my keyboard, and drinking close to eighteen litres of water through the day – yes, 18 – without a single visit to the bathroom. My sweat could have filled a bucket. And I was only watching the game. I still don’t know how Dravid managed to keep his sanity as he guided the run-chase with a 102-ball 105. It was a truly masterful innings, notable for the way he sussed the conditions and paced the chase.
India won that game in a tense finish. It was their seventeenth successful run-chase. They lost the next game (another nail-biter with Dwayne Bravo bowling a slower ball to fox Yuvraj Singh) and went on to lose the series. The team never recovered their consistency. Dravid, who was probably the best ODI batsman in the world at that point, never scaled those heights again. He was dropped a year later and the rest is quite a forgettable farce.
There was no dream ending in Cardiff but it told you a story. Dravid rebuilds. Dravid consolidates. Dravid finds the gaps. Dravid rotates strike. Dravid scores 69. Kohli top-scores. India lose. India round off one of their worst tours in history.
It just couldn’t have ended in any other way. And I can now go back to staring at the ceiling.
Related: When Dravid was there, Dravid and the mastery of the struggle, Degrees of fandom
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+69 for that post!! =)
Every time I get linked to your articles I am tempted to skip the whole article to jump to the end of the article. You are as good a finisher as Dravid was.
About your point that “his little finger isn’t hyper-analysed if it’s injured”. An interesting fact about Dravid is that, over his long career of 15 years, he has rarely made himself unavailable for a match on account of injury or a sore back or a viral.
Anybody can get injured any time, but some have a propensity to get injured or develop some niggling problems at convenient times. Dravid was always available, even if it was for a Ranji match.
I guess he holds a record for that. For playing most number of consecutive matches for the country in ODIs.
Fine point, Raj. Totally spot on with respect to how some players maintain their bodies so well. Kapil is a classic example but even someone like McGrath for most part of his career. Dravid’s durability is one of his greatest assets
An average ODI fan in India does not associate role specialization with the format. For someone like RSD, who did not have the flair or the swagger, a 99-06 type specific role could have helped win a fan base. It was not to be. My theory is if there were T20s when he was playing ODIs, he would be appreciated more. People won’t scoff at a strike rate of 75 if that helped India avert difficult situations or rebuild. A fans’ view of ODI has evolved after T20 came in- in 2007, going at 4.5 RPO in 30th over would mean 300 was out of reach. Today that’s the way to get to 300 in 50 w/ wickets in hand. The evolution of the game, the game itself, contributed to the underachievement label stuck to a RSD’s career.
Good point, Ashish. It takes a shorter format to know the value of a player in the longer version. But I don’t think the T20 age would have changed much. In fact, his kind of rebuilding/consolidation skills are best suited for ODIs and don’t really fit T20.
Yesterday, people in the commentary box were talking about only 12 hundreds and blah blah. You cannot score 100s in a ODI batting 5,6 or 7. If he had batted in top 3 throught he could have enede with atleast 35-40 and would have won some matches on his own.
Yes. The number of hundreds is often misleading. And not many players can float so easily up and down the order
sidvee thanks for a wonderful finale writeup on dravid .i am reminded of ,’the elegy written on a country churchyard, ” by thomas gray ,full many a flower blooms and goes unnoticed,.that is dravid .thanks sidvee.
The first thing I was waiting for last night after reading about Dravid’s swansong was YOUR article, and here you go. Though not the best of your articles, still loved reading it. I’m still recovering from your article about Djokovic.
Thanks man
Like the ache in your write up. I hope Rahul reads this article. I am sure he will be overwhelmed.
Thanks Shalini
Also not to forget the epic 188 at Kolkatta against Australia in the famous test match of 2001 only to upstaged by VVS Laxman’s 281. People remember VVS Laxman’s knock but forget that Rahul Dravid too provided an outstanding resilience to the Aussie bowling attack.Australia did not pick any wicket on that day (Day 4) of that test and India went on to win the test .
Also the fact that he has faced most number of cricket balls in Test history is a feat in itself.Speaks volumes of the technique he possess which I feel is beyond the skill of Tendulkar himself.It is unfortunate that Rahul played when Tendulkar was at his best. Any other era and Rahul Dravid would have perhaps been remembered more for his records and less for the ceiling gestures( which I feel is an excellent and apt way to put forth the anguist of his fans considering the demeanour of our hero.)
Excellent article that does justice to Rahul Dravid.
@Sumukh Naik…I would actually give my due plaudits to you here…..Why? You mentioned Dravid’s scored as 188 when it was actually 180 and on course increasing it by 8 runs….you have atleast lessened the degree of overshadowing a bit here 😉
Apropos to over-analyzing injured little fingers, I remember his 77 against South Africa at Durban with a broken finger. Although his performances in test matches where he’s injured usually get mentioned, I thought batting with a broken finger was special.
You just sum it up all so well… I hope someone points Rahul to your writing on him. Warms my heart – Dravid’s cricket and your writing. Both.
Kudos!
SidVee, I dont know why you dravid fans cannot look at cold statistics… All those innings were overshadowed for good reason. Why is it that Ian Bell untill this summer had this tag of only scoring when someone else does well and why should it not apply to Dravid. Now for the immortal scrores in test cricket…
Adelade – Gilespie, Bichel, Williams and Macgill… Hardly spine chilling
Rawalpindi – Akthar (injured early on in the innings), Kaneria, Mohammed Agarkar er Sami, and Fazle-Akbar (who the hell is that??)
Headingley – Caddick, Cork, Tudor, Giles and Andrew Flintoff (Not THE Flintoff then). ANd people would be forgiven if they thought Tudor had a better batting record.
I would agree with you on Kingston on a spitting wicket was his best batting untill this summer
ANd as for missing him in the One Dayers, ever since he was discarded, we have won almost everywhere…
To give credit where due, this summer was the only time that Dravid held his own against good quality bowling
I agree about the bowling attacks but why do you not consider conditions and the match situation?
Ah finally, someone agrees. The RD fans are usually bigoted and do not choose to see reason.. While the Adelade wicket was flat, there was nothing in the Pindi wicket for the bowlers… And I do not remember if you were with cricinfo during the Headingley innings, the english bowlers bowled short of length on the first day. While Dravid and Bangar both took blows on the body, you would agree it wasnt the most cleverest bowling around.
Ha. Of course it’s all so convenient to airbrush the Adelaide wicket ‘as flat’ but convenient to forget that India were 85/4 chasing 556 in a country where they hadn’t won a series. And of course there was nothing in the Pindi wicket but more than enough for Balaji to bowl Pakistan out for 224 – and so flat was the wicket and so easy were the conditions that not one other Indian batsman crossed 80 in an innings where RD made 270. And about Headingley – while I will no doubt agree that the bowling wasn’t of the highest quality the conditions and the pitch were probably the one of the most challenging. And also consider that great batting can make the bowling look quite inadequate.
Fine.. may be the bowlers were bad.. but why were the other Batsman Shitting their pants against the same bowlers..
Agree! Tendya fans are so jealous when Dravid gets praised. Does anyone remember what Tendulkar scored in those matches?
Umm weren’t the other batsmen also playing against the same bowling attack in those matches? So there are certain other factors that should also be taken into consideration. Right?
As for India winning everywhere, since Oct 18, 2007 India has played 116 and won 68 (includes current series and Champions trophy in SA). Out of this 51 wins have been achieved in the subcontinent. Not almost everywhere I would say and we all know what sort of pitches are prepared here.
My point is that give the poor man his due and move on. Everybody will have a point and a counterpoint. That cannot take away the man’s greatness.
Deepak, unfortunate that you opine thus. Do you remember Dravid’s 27 in SA, when Indian total was a grand 66? What of the another test in the same series against the hardly threatning bowling of Donald (still not the finished article?), Shuan Pollack (still new?), Klusner (still new?) wherein he made 148 and 80 n.o? And many more such innings where India did not win? Hardly his fault, I dare say. And, as for the 180 at Kolkata, you’d probably say, it was played in India?
We Indians are masters at being self-deprecating. Please have a look at all Dravid’s innings in Tests and you’ll see how good a batsman he was under the toughest of conditions.
Also, he’s a misfit in a world obsessed with ‘swagger’, ‘fluency’, ‘ease’ and ‘glamour’ . If the media, and indeed the world, threw their weight behind ‘perseverance’ and ‘resilience’, maybe he wouldn’t have been half as ‘unsung’.
But hey, who am I kidding.
Another good one Sid. Till today, I cannot fathom how Dravid’s ODI team unravelled so badly and spectacularly after the Bravo slower-ball !
Scorecards will do scant justice to Dravid’s ODI contribution. What Dravid did yesterday was what he has been doing all through the second half of his ODI career.. It was Kohli yesterday and in the past, it was Yuvi, Kaif or Dhoni.
In ODIs, spectacular knocks rank very high in public memory compared to the gritty ones. With good reasons, Harsha Bhogle called Tendulkar’s solid 81 vs Zim as more important than the 98 vs Pak and yet few will remember the former. I think that is in essence the problem with Dravid’s ODI career. No spectacular knocks but a great many solid, gritty and very very important ones. In fact, an avid cricket watcher like me too, didn’t remember the 99 in Karachi 🙂
Nice post. He made his first mark in ODIs during the Sahara Cup in 96. Remember him being top scorer in a low scoring game. Tough conditions too. Was the team’s go-to man for years.
Brilliant article. Plain and simple. I’m one of the ‘ceiling-staring’ fans of RD and reading this article just gives me enormous pleasure and the nostalgic memories of his ODI performances. Thank you Sidvee for the peachy article.
of course so too I, a close pal of nlvraghavendra…Both of us have grown up as two avid RD fans bandying about the eminence & meticulousness of our very wall…..Let we all RD fans propagate his feats across the globe instead of staring at the ceiling 😉
Awesome write up!!
There will be another tendulkar.. Another ganguly.. But Dravid is a legend India may never get to see again!
For me.. the 1st thing that comes to my mind on hearing his name is his Punching-the-air-scene of Adelaide test! That was the moment for me! Had bunked school to see india win!
Loved it.
85/4 chasing 556 on a flat wicket, you would expect someone to come up trumps. Now if it was something like VVS’ innings in Durban last year or Sachin Vs Steyn or like any of Dravid’s 3 innings in England this summer, it would be worthy of an immortal innings… Also while all RD fans lament the fact that he doesnt get enough credit for his 180 in Kolkatta, I dont see anyone crediting or saying a word about VVS’ 148 at Adelade. Ah for the Pindi, while no one else scored more than 80, I did not see anyone struggle either. While it is a credit for Dravid that he makes the most of the situation, you cant call that a great innings. And Pakistan’s 224 was more to do with Pakistan’s self destruction than Balaji’s bowling. As for Headingley, Good batting made inadequate bowling look inadequate.
OK. So you are saying those RD innings were not ‘immortal’? Is that your line or argument? Because I am saying that he is actually remembered for these innings. These are not innings that even come under the ‘lament’ (unlike many of his ODI innings which he is not remembered for)
Fair enough… Got carried away and mixed up with discussions that I have with RD idolisers
Deepak, chill man!
Good one Bib!!!
Nice article. As a Dravid fan I am still hopeful of him scoring the run that will put him to #1 spot in the test aggregates. May be i’m the only crazy one who has such a dream, but to me it appears a piece of cake. It requires all the characters Dravid is a master of: longitivity, durability, consistency, technique, motivation, and perseverance. That’s where dravid will own his place for ever.
*heavy heart*
Read your blog a couple of days back. Of course of those 3 hundreds that did win us a game, apart from the mini classic at Kingston, I hold his ton against West Indies in Ahmedabad close to my heart. Again, Bangar stole the limelight when no one thought he could strike cleanly, scored a 50 and won a game. Man of Match was Chris Gayle for his 140 early on. We chased 325 against a not-so-great attack as some would like to argue. But again, he kept wickets for 50 West Indian overs and batted, scored a ton and guided his team through a tough chase. Again, we lost the series in the face of some brilliant pace bowling in the last ODI in Vijayawada (?) and Procter’s statement after the Ahmedabad game went something like “I don’t care if others won the game, my Man-Of-The-Match is Chris Gayle.” RD has not been given his due leave alone more than his due. Oh this is just another lament from another RD fan.
Hey thanks for the comment. I remember that innings well. It was the third highest run-chase at the time. And it was another grueling day. He was cramping towards the end. Fine, fine knock
And it came a few months after the second most successful run chase where we chased 326 at Lord’s. No one can forget that. Again, the first match in that series at Lord’s involved a tough chase of close to 270. This game is not as well remembered as the Final. He kept wickets and scored a fine half century and guided Yuvraj who stole Dravid’s limelight. But it was Dravid who eased the pressure towards the end when it was getting tight with a flurry of boundaries. It wasn’t the greatest attack on a flat pitch, but still, that he is master at soaking pressure and coming up with fine knocks in physically and mentally demanding conditions is a fact. I mean you could go on.
I don’t see why RD fans ( or idolisers as put by someone here) should not consider him to be as good as SRT and better than any other in Indian cricket history especially in tests because in a team game he is essentially the best team man ever. In any format of the game, it is partnerships that wins you ( or sets up the game ) and no one is better in this than Dravid. If SRT or VVS has scored at least 3 centuries together we could have saved 2-3 tests in the recent series.
His Test v ODI perception is totally different. That is what I’ve tried to convey
The reason why he is not as good as SRT is … against the best bowling attacks and the most challenging conditions of his career – SA and Australia (untill this summer of course) he has scored only 4 test centuries… 2 of them when his partners scored 19 runs either side of 300 (Kolkatta and Chennai), one when the bowling wasnt the greatest (Adelade) and the other once upon a time in 1997 Jan. WHile everyone’s memory is recent and his contributions in the english summer should be acknowledged, it cant whish away his record against the toughest opponents
You cannot belittle somebody with flimsy reasons. Even SRT got out to absolute rookies and no hopers. It is all matter of form. If weak bowling is the criteria then everyone would have scored triple or quadraple centuries against Bangladesh. If flat pitches are going to be the criteria then why everyone who plays at Chennai, SSC Colombo or Antigua not score triple centuries at will?
As to bowling attacks and scoring, then there is a myth about Gavaskar also that he scored 13 hundreds against west Indies pace battery .But the facts are as below
He scored 4 centuries in 1971 series when their bowling was weakest (Holder/Noreiga/fading Sobers). Another 4 centuries came when he played 2nd string team of Kallicharan. 1 century in Guyana in 1983 (flat pitch/no result washout) Delhi and Chennai in 1983 ( again flat pitches and drawn games . That leaves 2 centuries he scored in Trinidad in 1976 when the WI was spin heavy.
He didnot do well in 1983 and in 1975 (home series) when their bowling was fiercest .
In England he scored only 2 centuries and didnot do well in Australia when it mattered.(1980-81)
However you cannot belittle his contribution.
Treat RD and others similarly. Every Batsman has favaorite and least favaourite venues and also form issues
Laxman has not dne well in England. SRT was below par between 2003-2007
I am not saying he’s a greater batsman than SRT but I find your argument incomplete because you don’t mention what went on to happen in that match. When it comes to his famous hundreds, you ensure to take into account the quality of the bowling attacks. But why don’t you consider how they altered the course of the match or the series?
Again, a tad depressing, my friend, your line of thought is! You some how seem bent on showing RD in poor light. Fine. I’ll point you to a few of his wonderful innings:
148 & 80 n.o against SA in SA.
84 against the same SA in ODI
180 at Kolkata
44 n.o vs Pak in ’03 WC
91 vs Aus at Perth in the 2007 series (we won that test !)
all Centuries in the current England series
98 vs Murali’s Sri Lanka in a winning cause
Even his 270 vs Pak : don’t you think you’re on thin ice – next highest score of 80 and Pak also not able to counter. Should say something about the pitch, right
The Kingston knocks
Some of his Sahara Cup knocks, particularly his 47 on a slow apology of a wicket that won the match for India
No-one has come to grips with swing in England, the way RD has
An each-inning century against NZ – you’d say it was hardly an attack, but what of others?
I could name many many more such, but I’ll let it pass.
4 centuries in around 60 tests against 2 of the toughest opponents is flimsy??? He averages around 35 combined and that is inflated because of one series in 2003-4 against Aus without Mcgrath, Warne and Lee (for the most part)… The reason I did not include 1 was for all the reasons you included above. Everyone has their favourite opponent and everyone has their nemisis. Gavaskar as you rightly pointed out did not do well when WI was at their best, but there is no denying his record against Pakistan. Lax hasnt done well in England, but since we are only looking at the toughest opponents and England certianly werent untill this summer, cant be included. As my reply was to someone who said why RD wasnt treated as good as SRT is because he simply has a poor record against the toughest opponents in his career. Even during the period you mentioned 2003-2007, he averages 51 in 38 tests with 6 centuries (inflatd because of 2 huge not outs)
ok 2 changes… He has played 50 tests and not 60 and averages 37.7
I have made my point that everybody has his favourite opponent and has a nemesis. It is important how you play against the nemesis.:-)
In Australia RD made many 90s . 92 melbourne, 91-sydney, 93- perth
In south Africa : 27/66 in Durban, 86 odd in port Elizabeth to save a test
That way out of SRT’s 51 hundreds about 40 would be meaningless
If you consider England attack weak because they were good only in 1 series then same goes for all other teams except Australia in 1995-2009 period and WI in early 80 s .
Cheers:-)
The many 90s are just the 3 you mentioned… and 2 of those were in that 2003/4 series OOps there was another 90, 93 in 99/00.. but that was the total in 6 innings. If your marker for greatness is 27 out of 66 all out, then I cant argue with that… 86 in PE very good innings… But we are talking of 50 tests and 90 innings…
I did not say England attack is week, but it wasnt the strongest in the world like SA and Aus.. As for 40/51 hundreds of Sachin being meaningless, I suggest you use the wonderful statsguru in cricinfo
Sidvee, It wasnt in response to your blog post, but in response to some of the comments which are in the order of RD-Better-than-SRT-But-Doesnt-get-credit type of messages.
My point is he hasnt done enough against tougher opponents to get top billing. There hasnt been an innings like the 96 against Steyn and co on a fast pitch in durban… There hasnt been a 86 like Ganguly’s on a dodgy wicket in Kanpur, there hasnt been a 114 like Sachin on a flyer in Perth or the 116 in Melbourne or the 123 in Edjbaston
Which is what I find confusing. How is Tendulkar at Edgbaston (against Lewis, Cork, Mullally, Irani and Patel) in a match that India lost better than Dravid at Headingley (in a match that India went on to level the series). The conditions and bowling were probably the same. But why do you not consider how these innings influenced the result? Doesn’t that count for anything? If innings were to stand alone, I am totally with you. I agree that some of Dravid’s finest innings have not come against great bowling attacks. But again, one has to put them in context.
Agree with you about the Edjbaston innings…Not in the same league as others.. I think the english attack in 96 was worse than the one in 2002
The context of the match counts too…Like being 58/5 at Newlands or 60/4 at Bloemfontain. Or 90 runs to win with a tailender in tow… or chasing 272 from 90/6 with a bad back against Akram, Saqlain and Waqar…Or scoring centuries in each innings with an injured elbow in Old Trafford or chasing 356 to win in Bridgetown…
well, you get the message… Now those are and should be ranked in the finest innings’ of the generation.
What I meant was all od RD’s famous innings in tough conditions (untill this summer) have come against lesser opponents
I agree with sidvee that we should look at the innings in a context and not standalone. When the opener or No. 3 softens and tires the bowlers by playing 50 deliveries or 2 .hours, it is easy for no. 4 to score runs. Batting always looks easy at no 4 and downwards. Runs scored is not the only criteria in cricket. It is the overall contribution of balls faced, getting the sting out of opponents etc.
For example south african attack this year was pedestrian after Stayn and Morkel were made to tire.
RD was always asked to open in tough conditions ( 2001-02 SA tour, 2007-08 Australia tour, recent England tour)
Teams best players always answer team’s call in crisis and donot hide behind their usual slot
I can visualize a situation where 7 players are injured and cant bat, we may have to see Ishant sharma and Amit Mishra opening the batting Zaheer walking at No. 3 and our No. 4 coming in at No. 4 as last man 🙂 .
Deepak, not really my point. Dravid is not great because of his average of 53 or because he average 39 in ODIs or because he has 82 fifties and 12 centuries in ODI cricket. When I think of my most euphoric moments of Indian victories, Dravid is a constant presence. As are Laxman, Sachin, Ganguly and Kumble. So, our respect for Dravid and his claim to greatness are outside of and despite the numbers.
With that clarification out of the way, I disagree with your assessment that most of his runs came against easy opposition and on easy tracks. If that is the case, even his runs in the recent Test series stand the risk of being written off in the future if Bresnan, Broad, Swann and Anderson fail to carry on in the same vein for the foreseeable future. One can always say that these guys were average bowlers with average figures and no comparison to McGrath or Walsh or Donald or Steyn. But someone who watched all 4 matches would know it was not. By the same token, Laxman’s Mohali masterpiece, most centuries by Ricky Ponting and other Australians (he never had to face Warne and McGrath), most of Kallis’s centuries (he never had to face Donald or Steyn), every century scored against England before 2010, against West Indies post their Walsh and Ambrose era, all of Cook’s centuries starting with last year’s Ashes can be written off!
So, what counts? Only the runs scored in Brisbane, Perth, Headingley, Kingston, Durban and even then, only those runs scored against Donald, McGrath, Walsh, Ambrose, Steyn, Warne? That would leave about a handful of runs among the tens of thousands scored by Test batsmen till date.
While talking about context, keep in mind factors like the form opponents were in, the condition of the ball, the form of team mates, was someone going through a good spell, quality of the fielding, the difficulty in scoring runs, etc, apart from ‘conditions’ and ‘opponents’. Most of these are not quantifiable.
You don’t have to actually watch cricket to know who is great and who is not if all you use are numbers and stats. While Dravid will never stack up favorably against Sachin for number-crunchers, Dravid’s achievements are of a different nature. It is a hard to appreciate Dravid; unless you watched all those matches and were part of the experience.
Identyless, Exactly my point…
The number crunching is what has made RD great and the not the other way around. As a Sidduism goes, Statistics are like bikinis.. They reveal quite a bit, but conceal the important bits… So in RD’s case, his stats show that he averages 53, but it doesnt show how poor he has been when the bowling has been good, quality of fielding has been good and when it was difficult to score runs. All his great innings untill this summer and that match in Kingston have come on featherbeds and lesser bowling attacks
Something out of context –
The comments remind me of an old ad – “Cricketers ko to sab advise dete hain – Square Cut maarna tha na yaar”
Excellent article. Runs scored and centuries alone should not be used to measure a batsmen’s worth. Sure Dravid will approve your if he reads this 🙂
I have always been a fan of your cricket writings 🙂 ‘The unforgiven’ you had written for cricinfo remains my fav piece, followed by ‘Losing my religion’
This is something I have written on Rahul Dravid. Please do leave your feedback 🙂
http://musings-lyrics.blogspot.com/2011/09/why-i-hated-rahul-dravid.html
Good article, Sid.
I have gone through all the comments with great interest. I thought Deepak Rao’s position was worthy of discussion till I read the last bit of his last comment.
“… in RD’s case, his stats show that he averages 53, but it doesnt show how poor he has been when the bowling has been good, quality of fielding has been good and when it was difficult to score runs. All his great innings untill this summer and that match in Kingston have come on featherbeds and lesser bowling attacks”.
This is about as sweeping a statement as one can make about a batsman who’s got 12000+ runs in Test cricket, most of them at #3 (a few at #1), many of them overseas in match-saving /match-winning situations. Sure, like Tendulkar and the others, he’s got easy runs too on some occasions. But, not for nothing, has he earned that sobriquet of “The Wall”. When the bowling’s good, when the fielding’s good, when runs are hard to come by and wickets are falling steadily at one end, that’s when India has found the value of “The Wall”.
I’m not the biggest RD fan in the world (in fact, I didn’t mind it one bit when he was dropped from the ODI side) but I find a comment like the one made above extremely unfair to somebody who has contributed so much to India’s performances (esp in Tests) for the last 15 years.
Raja, As I have already conceded, this summer RD batting was at a differnt level abd that match at Kingston…When India have colapsed, say 50/5 or we are trying hard in the 4th innings to save the game(ok, there was an innings in PE, conceded and century in each innings in Kolkatta (forgotten by RD fans)) or getting out of the woods in the 3rd innings (VVS way), let me know if you can find any of his innings that is worthy of mention.
Deepak
Instance for “When India have colapsed, say 50/5” ..I remember his 170+ on the first day of series against SL rescuing the team from 27/4 during his lean period of 2009 or 2010!
U are not talking sense sir!
Hi Sidvee,
Looks like you reach a different level altogether when you write about RD. Wonder whether the great player himself has read your blogs? ever interacted with him?
Hari
Dravid completely owned this series, nobody overshadowed him this time around. 3 centuries in the tests and absolutely nobody, none came anywhere near his exploits. For once in his career he was not the second act. In the end he did get his due.
There you go Gana…Very good find… Dont know why nobody mentioned that… While he dint prevent a colapse with Yuvraj and Dhoni, it still was a SL attack of Walagadera, Prasad, herath, Mathews besided Murli. So while you are right on the point about preventing colapse, I dont see you telling me that it was a very good bowling attack or that Motera (other than for 2 matches against SA) is not a flat wicket
Deepak
Attack and pitch does not matter with your team at 27/4 with the best 3 batsman in form ( Sehwag, SRT and Laxman) already done. By the way, it is just the one of those innings played in crisis when he is in the worst form of his life. There are others if we go back..
by the way, even his century against KP’s England in India soon after Mumbai blast is also huge for the team.
I met Rahul only once when he played for Prez XI against the WIndies of 1993 in Bengaluru. Hardly exchanged any words with him. And I curse myself! My son tells me that he went to an ice cream parlour near Indira Nagar and looked back to see Dravid standing in queue behind him, waiting for his ice cream purchase like anyone else! Self effacing, expecting nothing just because he is the Dravid, modest to a fault. That’s RSD! This speaks as much about his career as anything else. When two bit players with two IPL matches behind them think they are two notches above God, Dravid is the role model we need so badly in this brash age!
Not that i am fan of RD or dislike SRT. Reading Deepak’s comment makes me wonder whether RD got his (easy)runs in a booze filled night out with all (mediocre) bowlers.And SRT is a God. Who am i to question his run accumulating ability.
Wow Sid!!!
Thanks Soundari
That was AMAZING!
the article gave me goosebumps!
am yet another Dravid fan who have always felt the same!!
Dravid doesn’t have glorious centuries…. But the number of times he saved the team and the consistent contribution and the adaptation to conditions….
he is THE BEST.
Thanks a ton
shishirkl,
270 and I am on thin ice… You are trying to walk on water mate… For me a great innings is when Viru scores 201 out of a team total of 329 or when Hayden scores 203 out of 391. As for the next higest score being 80, there was a 73, 71, 69 and a 47… which means while the others did not go ahead and score big, they were comfortable. The wanderers early on in his career was a good innings.. but if you are including 40s (44 against Pakistan.. really? if anything he was 3rd in the pecking order after SRT and Yuvi), there was this exhibition game I went to in Mangalore (P V Shashikant benefit if I remember right) when he was out of ODI in 98… he scored 50 something… How about that?
Identyless, While all my comments had a caveat that it was untill this summer, I included Laxman’s Mohali masterpiece because Sidvee wanted to look in context. While you can only play the opposition you get, but if you do get a chance to play the best in tough conditions and do not come up trumps, it says quite a bit. If you asked Cook if he woud swap half of his runs in the last ashes with the ashes in 2006/7, he would agree
Man in Black, It might be your perception that if one doesnt like Dravid, he must think SRT is God…
Booze filled night out? Ha… While I never said his runs were easily made, the point he dint make it against the toughest oponents
Though beside the point, I am curious as to why you say Cook would have happily swapped the runs he scored this Ashes with the one in 2006/07. Is it because Australia wiped out England in 2006-07 but lost in 2010-11? The runs that he scored this time are not less valuable or important because he did not score them in 2006-07. Consider that the results might have been similar if Cook (or Trott or Bell or anyone else) had perished cheaply this time round too every match and that Cook played a huge part in making Australia look weak.
I would consider an attack that had Mcgrath/Warne and Lee to be better than Siddle, an erratic Johnson and any Ausie who has a spinner’s grip.. and I have got a feeling that Cook would agree with me
Deepak
Do you bear a grudge against a meek and docile cricketer like Dravid.
I have begun to smell a rat.
Mega,
To bear a grudge, I do not know RD personally. I would be happy to even play 1 first class game given my skill forget 157 tests…
If you are someone who thinks RD is great, then meek and docile might be an insult. I think he isnt meek and docile because he has played so many tests without being injured. The only bone of contention is whether he is great or not… But if you are someone like me who thinks RD isnt great and also thinks he is docile and meek, wait till identlyless and his ilk get hold of you…
I do not know RD personally to gain his trust and then rat him… So either you think I have done that, or you do not know the usage of the term or you actually live in a place infested with rats to smell them literally
Deepak
In my opinion being meek and docile for your team’s cause does make one an ordinary run-of-the mill guy.So I strongly stand by my words.As far as your 3 presumptions about the rat thing goes There is absolutely no truth to that.But you stay happy with them and bask in your so-called triumph about your assumptions.Take Care.
I can see how deepak has been making a fool out of himself…. What I can’t fathom is why the other sane people are entertaining his foolishness?!!!!
The problem with our psyche is that whenever we discuss the merit, worth, importance, contribution, class or greatness of any contemporary Indian batsman, we end up comparing him with SRT and end up belittling one of our own heroes. I have never come across a debate as to whether Hayden was better than Ponting or fans from other countries (except Pak, may be) damning one of their own player to prove the greatness of another. Thank heavens we never had a team like the Oz of 1995 to 2008 !
Further, I find the theme of the piece itself to be a bit superficial. Its not about worth of RD or his greatness or class or so many other things that define a player and are dear to him – but about the public perception and recognition of his worth. I am sure, he himself would not be interested in any such debate. He does not appear to be the type who would care too much of what the media or the public thinks of him. All true cricket lovers of this country know what RD has accomplished for them, but to compare him with SRT, and belittling one of the two in the process, is just dumb and childish. There are several uncontrovertible reasons why SRT is what he is and why he has received all the adulation over so many years that he has and, let me express, it can certainly not be entirely attributed to the media. RD has his own space in the Indian pantheon that he deserves and none can deny him that. But to trash SRT, even for highlighting the worth of RD, is NOT the honorable thing to do.
Thanks for the comment. I can’t see how I have ‘belittled’ SRT in this post. In fact I have only highlighted his extreme popularity. I am curious about this ‘damning’ that you talk about. Also, there have been numerous debates in Australia about the greatness of various cricketers. Comparisons have been used and I see no harm in it because fans love comparisons. Also, it doesn’t really matter to me if Dravid is interested in the way he is perceived. But I sure am. In fact many of the blogposts here focus on the public perception of sportsmen – simply because I am a fan and I have a perception and I sense others around me have a perception and I want to write about it. Of course “all true cricket lovers” know RD is a great but that’s a highly one-dimensional view that ignores nuance. If all of us could say ‘RD has his place in the pantheon and SRT has his place in the pantheon’ and if we could take a similar line for several other cricketers, there would be very few discussions on cricket.
“Of course all true cricket lovers know RD is a great ” This is your blog and your view
I was quoting what he had said. Should have put it in quotes.
No, Sidvee, your article does not belittle SRT, excpet that you write the following:
“Sure, unlike you-know-who, Dravid doesn’t have hordes of reporters standing outside his house on his birthday (Jan 11 in case you’re interested), his little finger isn’t hyper-analysed if it’s injured and he’s not the most searched name on Cricinfo on 362 days of the year (I am convinced that there are thousands of people who wake up every morning and begin searching ‘Sachin Tendulkar’ on the internet).”
what is that if not a jab at him? c’mon admit it.
further, i was commenting on other comments here bringing SRT into the debate. now, if Rd has been overshadowed by other palyers in the games where he scored big, then whose fault is it?
my point was that your piece is not a discussion on cricket, but on how public perceives a cricketer. public perceives a cricketer as per his deeds. if public does perceive RD in some negative way, which is the point of your article, then there must be a reason for it, including, that the public is not really appreciative of the qualities he possesses and represents. my point is that it does not really matter how pubic perceives a player. he is unpopular primarily becasue of his inability to consistently score fast, with a few exceptions apart, in shorter formats, which is a fact.
I still don’t understand how that paragraph belittles SRT. It highlights his extreme popularity. And it’s a fact that reporters do cover his birthday and that his injuries are analysed and that he’s an internet phenomenon. I don’t get what’s so damning about stating the facts. Also, people bringing SRT into debates also highlights his popularity and influence on the way we watch cricket. So it shouldn’t surprise you at all. And re RD, it’s not really anyone’s fault that he was overshadowed. I was just stating that through his ODI career, he was overshadowed almost always.
As for the public perception – I was putting some numbers and facts in to illustrate the public perception. And a cricketer’s ‘public perception’ may not matter to you but as I have said before, it matters to me.
shishirkl,
About the century in each innings in Hamilton, the second innings century was against the fearsome attack of Astle, Horne, Spearman and Macmillan. Kiwis gave them a go as Chris Cairns had batted india out of the match. Why does your memory fade for the priovious test when India were 16/4 (RD’s first career duck) in windy wellington against an inform Simon Doull (so context, opponents, conditions everything in order). Azhar produced one of his best innings to bail out in the innings to reach 220 (we did loose the match).. Now I dont see that being remembered as one of the great innings played by an Indian
You are great Deepak . Now you have convinced me that RD is a useless club class cricketer
” All Hail the great cricket analyst Deepak Rao ” He haseally opened my eyes after so many years . Now I know how to watch cricket
Oh well Pramod, there is no middle road for RD idolisers… Either he is great or if someone says otherwise he is a club cricketer…
sidvee,
its the intonation of mockery and the sense of being wronged that is palpable in that particular ‘highlighting of facts’ by you. i sensed it and it did not surprise me at all. its too common a theme to be surprising. but if you say that that was not your intent, i have no choice but to accept it. i agree with you fully that dravid has not attained the demi god status in india that sachin has, but he never played like one! and here i mean the ‘style’ of batting and not the amount of runs scored. i enjoy watching him leave the ball, square cutting, pulling and straight and cover driving. but it does frustrate me when time and agian he hits the ball to the fielders in the circle during powerplays (whcih is more often than not) and i get irritated at his stock shot of dropping a rising delivery next to he feet and taking a couple of steps forward when there is no chance of a run. Also, the way he got run out in one of the ODIs in the England series, shows that after 15 years of ODI cricket, he still could not make it a habit to drag the bat in.
Must read
@Deepak: Let us test your hypothesis of what constitutes greatness. I will take the example of a ‘great’ bowler and ‘great’ batsmen you have mentioned in your comments – McGrath and Tendulkar. Tendulkar has played 9 matches in which McGrath has been part of the opposition and averages 37. Not even close to his career average of 56. So, not great?
McGrath, I can also point out, cannot be called a ‘great’ bowler because he has not taken wickets at will in India and Sri Lanka, arguably the toughest conditions for a fast bowler. Approximately 500 of his Test wickets came in Australia, England, NZ, SA and WI, not the ‘toughest’ bowling conditions. I am sure you can come up with some equally convincing stats to show that McGrath is, indeed, great and we can all trade numbers till the cows come home.
But, if your hypothesis is sound, it should apply to any situation, throw up predictable answers and justifiable results. So, can you explain the causal connection you have implied in your arguments, please, i.e. Dravid cannot be called ‘great’ because he has not scored against the best opponents (Australia, SA) and in the toughest conditions.
Interestingly (and on a rather pointless detour), using your hypothesis, we can probably strip the tag of ‘great’ from practically any player and any sport. I will use it with another sport that I follow: Tennis – Sampras, Agassi, Federer, Nadal, Djokovic, et al… Sampras never won the French Open, but Agassi did. Sampras played only once against Federer and lost. Federer has lost 6 times in Grand Slam Finals to Nadal and has never defeated Nadal in the French Open. Djokovic has won every match against Nadal this year. Who is great? All, in their own way, or, none?
Identyless,
I guess everyone has their concept of greatness and for some you have to do well against the toughest oponents and for others the perception is good enough. I hope your cows havent come home… As you rightly pointed out SRT averages 37 with Mcgrath around with 7 scores over 50 in 18 innings. RD averages 31 in 22 such innings with only 3 scores over 50 including that 180. You would put that to number crunching again and I cant justify it any further. As for Glenn Donald Mcgrath (full name because I think you are talking about someone else), he averages 21 in India in 8 tests. It is not that I am conjuring these figures, but I used the wonderful statsguru..
According to my hypothesis (that would be a first), Sampras has won 14 grandslams should put it beyond doubt.. but that he hasnt won french would mean an asterisk in his great career. But did he disgrace himslef in Roland Garos, I think not.. He was almost always in the last 4. Same is the case with Federer although his asterisk would be he won the french open without having to beat Rafa. Joker has won against Rafa this year, but that isnt exactly my hypothesis (makes it sound better every time I type that).. I did not say any time in all the comments trail (sorry Sidvee, it is still your blog) that RD is not great because he scored a grand total of 93 runs in 99/00 in oz or that he hasnt scored a century in SA since 1997.. It is just that he has been below par on averages against the 2 tough sides. It is a bit like some spaniard saying Sergi Brugera is one of the greats or a Chilean claming Marcello Rios is one of the legends in the game
You have come from “My point is he hasnt done enough against tougher opponents to get top billing” to “I did not say any time in all the comments trail (sorry Sidvee, it is still your blog) that RD is not great… just that he has been below par on averages against the 2 tough sides.” This is a much more nuanced position than your original one. Do I agree with you whether he has been below his own par against Australia and South Africa in several series. Yes. Do I agree that make him less great? No.
Many people on this blog consider Dravid to be among the greats. The position is a fair one because of the body of his work over 15 years, his character, what he brings to the team, his value as an anchor and several other factors. Your position that Dravid does not deserve to be called great is based on what he has *not* done. Your two factors are arbitrary and ignore several finer aspects of the game. If these were the only two factors, cricket would be peppered with 300s and 400s and 10 wicket hauls every match. But has it happened? No.
Extending your argument, should we stop considering Kallis a great because he has only one 200? Sachin because he does not have a 300? Perhaps, Lara is not great because he has only one 400 to his name and did not score a 500 in Test cricket? Where do we stop? If were strip right down to the numbers, cricket (or any other sport) would have much fewer, or no, greats.
Your argument, as it stands now, is one dimensional and could come from anyone who has access to Statsguru and an inkling of the nature of the sport. I may not have disagreed with you if you questioned Dravid’s claims to greatness based on a stronger and more holistic argument.
By the way, a quick correction on Sampras – the only time he was in the last 4 @ RG was in 1996. Does that change your stand on Sampras’s greatness or make the asterisk large enough for revisiting your opinion?
Identyless,
I thought that what we hear when a politician says “taken out of context” is actually a way of getting out of wiggly situation.. That was a nice touch to break at not great… and not getting the whole context. What I did mean was I dont think RD is not great becasue he had an odd failure, but he has been a failure by any standards of greatness against tougher oponents.. so the example of if it was one series in Aus where he scored 93 runs or the fact that he hasnt scored a century in SA since 1997.. There is no change in the supposedly not nuanced position of mine
That you dont agree with that contention that becuase he has been well below par against his toughest oponents doesnt matter when you confer him the greatness is your opinion. What probably matters to you are his runs against not the strongest sides and several other factors which actually comes up when the former is weak. For eg – Shane Warne (before you talk about his India record; everyone has a nemesis), nobody every says if he was a good team man or his character (lack of it). I havent heard from anyone who says Malcom Marshall was a great team man.. all they talk about is his bowling (or batting on one hand)
My arguement is based on what Dravid has “done” and not “not done”
and that is he has “done” very poorly against the best sides he has played against until this summer.
I dont know how you got the perception that I am after 200s and 300s.. I have gone back and forth on this blog and I cant see it. My point has been that he has been poor by virtue of having scored only 4 hundreds in 50 tests and averaging 37 in his career.
As for the other things he brings to the table, team person, anchoring etc etc, that is when you hide behind the numbers… This business of anchoring and you might accuse me of knowing too little(again), In the very little cricket I have played, if someone came up to me and said, you play all the shots, take the risk, make runs, I will make sure my wicket does not go down, play defensively , I would straight away know who the better cricketer is…But hey, the team might have wanted RD to play that way…
I cant make it more holistic than it is currently. If it is your contention that RD is great, well that is the standard you set for yourself. And Oh everyone has access to statsguru
I dint know about Sampras having such a poor record.. As I said somewhere in this long trail of comments, everyone has a nemesis and clay was his… so his asterisk stays the same size.
Qualify “by any standards of greatness against tougher oponents” please. What, or who, or how many is the gold standard? You have also upgraded “below par against tough sides” to “very poorly against the best sides”. There is a world of difference between the two.
I find it hard to believe you have never heard people talk about character, being a team man, etc. People talk about those intangibles all the time, as they should when they talk about sportsmen. Don’t tell me you have not heard ‘fiercely competitive’, ‘proud’, ‘grit’, ‘determination’, ‘willing to bat/bowl any lengths of time’ before, in the context of a game of cricket. Akram bowling after shots of insulin, Kumble bowling with a broken jaw, Sachin batting with a dodgy back, Dravid and Laxman seeing off one full day and coming back to bat another, Gambhir batting out a day and a half; cricket is full of such feats that may not stand the test of numbers. But they will be remembered and cherished for what they brought to the moment, to the sport. If you consider all these irrelevant, I guess there is no real point in talking about sports and sportsmen or greatness. We can talk about the budget deficits of banana republics in Africa, instead.
I have to add that I have little or no interest in discussing 200s and 300s and the point I was trying to make was the same thing you have denied: numbers are not the whole story and that your arguments are not extensible. Judging any player just by numbers is a wasted exercise. That is not “hiding behind the numbers”. That is the nature of sport. You are welcome to ignore this, of course, but numbers can destroy a reputation just as well as build them. Point out any player who is considered great and I am sure someone can come up with a statistic to prove otherwise. Since you’ve mentioned Warne – he has an excellent record against all teams but below his par against India and West Indies. While you’ve acknowledged that everyone has a nemesis that they are not good against, you apply that for Shane Warne (and Sampras) but fail to do so for Dravid. Shane Warne can be conferred with greatness even though he has a below par record against India (tough opposition) and West Indies (tough opposition?). Double standards? Hence my statement that you judge players by what they’ve done rather than ‘not done’. Sure, a player could be greater but that is just wishful thinking. *All* players could be better and greater. But, remember that players are considered great ‘despite’ their failures and inconsistencies. And that, I believe, applies to any sportsman.
Identyless,
Apologies for the lac of clarity in my writing… His record has been below par against SA and Aus, but very poor to be considered a great… 4 centuries in 50 tests.. Now that we have put aside
Anyone who has listened Ravi Cliche Shastri’s commentry would know all those words… What I meant in the example was Malcom Marshall was a great bowler first backed up by numbers and he was a great team man/ character etc etc as an adendum. As for setting the greatness in Gold standards, your standards for greatness are quite low and you are perfectly entitled your opinion
Hussain – Fiercely combative.. that 94 at Headingley (was it at the Oval?) against SA, one of the best test innings you will ever see… gritty, blows on the body, batting with the tail and all that..
Atherton – Who can forget his 195 at JOberg
Gautam Gambhir as you rightly pointed out batting out day and a half to save the game
Gary Kirsten
to name a few who in my book would be bloody good competitive players, but well short of being great…
Micheal Chang in tenis – what a tryer, went for every shot and all he has got to show is a french open title and an olympic medal, but fits in all the categories you mentioned
Jack Russel, Bangar… I am taking the piss now
I would like to think Kumble, Akram, Tendulkar, Laxman are considered great players not only because of all the things that you said, but also because they back it up with numbers. I agree with you those moments are all that we cherish…but they are just part of what makes them great not THE part. I know Craig Macmillan takes insulin injections too and was fiercely competitive, I cant see him being in the same pedastal as Akram.
Everyone or mostly every great has a nemesis and the last time I looked Australia and SA were 2 seperate countries and teams… Warne’s numbers against the WI are just as good or bad as Kumble’s career averages
“As for setting the greatness in Gold standards, your standards for greatness are quite low”. I don’t remember saying Dravid was great because he measured up against numbers 1, 2, 3, etc… I’m not sure where you inferred this from. There is no comparison. But you have mentioned several times that Dravid’s records against the best teams has been below par/poor. This is where I presume you have a standard against which you have compared. I also believe you mentioned that Tendulkar averages 37 with Mcgrath around with 7 scores over 50 in 18 innings and Dravid averages 31 in 22 such innings with only 3 scores over 50 including that 180. Was Dravid on auto-pilot when he scored “that 180” because the runs there for anybody’s taking? You seem to be belittling a truly landmark inning and match because McGrath was not around? The fact that Laxman scored more and better does not make the 180 insignificant. They were both exceptional in that match, McGrath or no McGrath. Considering all the points you have made, the difference of 130 runs is what separates ‘great’ from ‘not great’? This is the only possible conclusion I can draw and I find it, at best, illogical. Keep in mind that I am not calling anyone else’s greatness or value into question. An era can have several great players at the same time, each in a different way.
While I rarely use numbers as sole currency to justify why someone is great, I do not have a choice here. So, here goes:
You have conveniently ignored *several* statistics when you say Dravid has a poor record against Australia and South Africa. Dravid, for instance, averages 53 in matches India has won against these two and 51 when India has drawn (29 matches in total). He averages only 22 in the 21 matches India has lost. So, Dravid does not have a “poor” record against the best teams; he has had “poor runs” against these countries. If you run a detailed analysis, every player will have poor runs and bad patches. Let us talk about what the results mean for the team. India has won exactly 2 Test matches in Australia in the present era. Guess what Dravid’s average is in these two test matches? Guess who scored the most in the first ever Test match India won on Australian soil since 1981 under “easy” conditions? Sure, other players scored too and McGrath was not around but the runs don’t score themselves. Somone has to do it. Australia was not great for the 15 years because they had McGrath. They were great because the quality of the Australian team was far more that the contributions of individuals and Australia was still exceptionally tough without McGrath or with an out-of-form McGrath or any other player. While Aus won 84 matches out of the 124 McGrath played, they also won 18 matches out of the 33 he did not play during his career and lost only 8. Guess which teams made the most out of McGrath’s absence? *Hint*: Not your other ‘best’ team, South Africa. Incidentally, Dravid’s away record can be called “poor” only in South Africa and SL. He has a remarkable record everywhere else. Shall we write these off, then, because they were all easy teams? India wins Test matches abroad all the time and were never bothered by the conditions, atmosphere in any foreign country except Australia and South Africa? This is the context that you have refused to look at all the while. In reality, you have called Dravid’s greatness into question based on exactly 21 matches out of the 160 he has played. If you want to insist that the is the right way to go, sure.
That 180 wasnt a sarcastic comment.. It was that 180… However it was more Munna and Circuit (hoping you can decipher who is who) rather than Jai and Veeru… I know in a sport like cricket unlike tenis or such kinds every batsman is onto himself. But I cant see that RD in the form that he was in would have scored 180 without that 281 and he had to come down at 6 to do it which of course you will credit him for flexibility. The point about 7 scores more than 50 to 3 scores is that SRT has got better scores than RD (40% to 15%).
The 2 games that India won in the last decade in Australia are not the best sample size to measure anyones game. Has he contributed in both those wins.. yes in a big way… Can we call him great becasue of those 2 games… er I doubt..
I agree with you that Aus even without Mcgrath were a formidable unit and Mcgrath was only a symbol in my arguement that Ausie were the best under him. That you agree that Ausies are very good anyway puts into perspective his poor record.
“Shall we write these off, then, because they were all easy teams?” Isnt that my “hypothesis” that to be great you have to do well against the best.. As for Dravid’s record being better in Australia in spite of 93 runs in 6 innings in 99/00 and 233 runs in 8 innings 07/08 is because of the phenomenal series in 2003/4 against Williams, Bracken, Bichel, macgill and Gilespie (the only automatic choice) and Lee in parts. In reality I have called Dravid’s supposed greatness into question not on those 21 matches, but in general against the best attacks in the world in alien conditions and that will rule out 2003/4 and possibly 97/98 in India (Adam Dale, Paul Wilson, Reifel)… I know we are going to run in circles and you will come up with another arguement about how Brad Williams, Nathan Bracken, Stui Macgill and Bichel are actually world beaters… But I am not holding my breath
“But I cant see that RD in the form that he was in would have scored 180 without that 281 and he had to come down at 6 to do it…” Relevance of previous form? Is a century at 6 is, somehow, lesser than a century at 2/3/4/5 and if someone is already batting well at the other end? This seems more like an attempt to discredit the innings just to prove a point.
My answer to your McGrath (or any other bowler) idea: In the 9 matches Sachin, for example, played against McGrath’s Australia, he scored over 100 in a match 3 times (total of 452 runs). Do you know how many runs McGrath gave away in the three matches? Do you know how many times Sachin had to face McGrath considering he was No 4/5 and McGrath a strike bowler? Please find out how many runs Sachin scored off McGrath in those matches, because, as you said, Gillespie, Kasprowicz, Warne, etc are all either average or average against India and hence runs against them shouldn’t count. **Faint disapproval on the deconstruction**
Millions of people agree Sachin is great. Several of them might be shocked to know that he is great because he has scored 7 50’s against a team which had McGrath (or anyone else) while Dravid (or some other batsman) scored only 3.
I am not discrediting the innings in any way… Previous form is the one in mumbai where he played 200 balls to make painstakingly 39 runs only to get out as soon as SRT got out to the freak dismissal. A century at No 6 is just as good as a century anywhere… But the fact is he had to move to No 6 from 3 so that circuit could come up with the performence…
Did I say Gillespie, Kasper (for most parts) and Warne were average… I dont think so…I told Adam Dale, Paul Wilson, Paul Rifel, Brad Williams, Nathan Bracken, Stui Macgill, Andy Bichel were average bowlers, but if you dont think so, well it is your opinion..( they might be great characters, team men, hard working etc etc. I know Andy Bichel certianly is. He also got the Ausie cricketer of the year (AB medal) the year previous, I think).. And I do think SRT is a great for you because you should have a big list of great cricketers..
As for the several of the millions who have been following this blog and in particular have found interest in what we got to say and havent dozed, I would say I never said SRT is great because he has 7 scores of over 50 against Mcgrath in the team and RD wasnt becuase he has only 3. What I did mean was it was a symbol of where the greats stand and where the not greats stand. SRT is a great batsman because he has always scored at least a 100 in every tour of Aus and SA except in 2006/07 and he doesnt have a really mediocre average anywhere other than Pak. Same with a certian BC Lara… or a Steve Waugh who was unbreachable in the 89 ashes against the odds or his exploits in the 95 carrebean tour or Malcom Marshall, Alan Donald, Pollock, Mcgrath, Holding for having such exceptional records in conditions that were the toughest for them
From what I gather from you is that RD has to be great because he is a team man, flexible, great character and the fact that he has scored only 4 hundreds in his career against Aus and SA which you dont consider to be the best opponents in the last decades do not matter…
Even though you say you are not discrediting Dravid’s 180, your point that he had to move to 6 to do it implies that you do. Dravid scoring 6 runs an inning and 4 50s less than Sachin against McGrath is a ‘symbol’ of why he is not great while between them they have played close to 350 matches and scored 28000 Test runs. I presume this is a fun fact? And also, did you find out exactly how many of those runs were actually against McGrath? I don’t remember the 200 ball 39, but that is 200 balls India did not lose a wicket. It has its own value. It was a Test match.
Finally, you have come out with a list of whom you consider greats and whom you don’t. Run through all your facts again, please. All of the players you have mentioned have a place/team where they are mediocre. Doesn’t take away their achievements or quality.
great piece mate! RD may not be the most celebrated cricketer but certainly is one of the finest to grace the cricket field! Be it the different batting positions he’s played over the years, am sure he would’nt have made much fuss when approached to do so, the different role he’s taken up (keeping wickets) is indeed truly remarkable!
Identlyess,
I dont know how better to tell you this… As per my “hypothesis” everyone has A team which is a nemesis and since you are discussing my hypothesis, we will stick to that rule ( I dont know if Macco had a bad record)… And I cant explain any better the symbol thing either.. Hence my limited skill in conveying my mind is a sad limitation…Oh and I did not find out how many balls did Sachin face against pigeon or for that matter RD and that wasnt my point anyway
On the contrary, your entire argument and judgment is based on:
1. There are a few ‘great’ bowlers around.
2. Has a batsmen done well against them?
3. Yes – great. No – not great.
So, yes, that appears to be your point. Cricket is not just 4 or 5 batsmen against 4 or 5 bowlers. You can’t reduce the gravity of years on the field to to one ‘great’ Vs ‘another’. That will give you a circular argument and a misleading answer. And, as I said earlier, with enough analysis, you can question the reputation of any player and build one when none exists. Sure, there are a whole lot of people out there who don’t think Dravid deserves to be called ‘great’; all I want is a reasoned argument based on a gamut of factors that go into making Cricket what it is. I am willing to be proved wrong on every one of my points.
I think I should give myself more credit that I give.. I have made you understand my point or hypothesis to great extent. Your simplistic arguement about cricket not being 4 or 5 batsmen against 4 or 5 bowlers is bang on.. But when these special batsmen ply their trade against the special bowlers the other mediocre varity seems better (With Zaheer, the indian pedestrian attack looks better, otherwise it doesnt look like an attack). Hence my judgement of greatness is and will always be how any batsman or bowler has done well against a very good side. Now there can be an odd failure like 93 runs for RD in aus in 99/00 or an odd success like Hirwani bamboozling WI in 88 against good sides.. But when looked at the whole picture, you will know. And that is the most reasoned arguement that I can make.
deepak,
i do agree with most of what you have been saying here but i strongly disagree with your argument that dravid cannot be counted as one of hte greats of indian cricket. i will not go into details and statistics, but merely say that without him india would not have acheived all she did during the past decade. the mere fact of his association with almost every test victory on foreing soil, irrespective of the quality of the opposition, is sufficient for him to be immortalised as a genuinely great indian batsman.
Pradyuman,
I have no problem with that school of thought and cricket is after all said and done a team game… My arguement with identyless and co is when they try to dispute my arguement
Deepak, I do not see where you have agreed that Dravid is one of the greats of Indian cricket. The reason people on the forum have not agreed with you is because you have reduced everything to a one vs another contest, which is clearly not the case with a team game (on which, you finally seem to have agreed). However, you do seem to have the odd disjointed idea that we should all look “at the whole picture.. to know” without really looking at it yourself. Throughout your arguments, you have never acknowledged something like what Pradyuman, I or many others else have constantly pointed out – the big picture.
Identlyless, Before you and I crash this blog or Sidvee becomes the first wordpress blogger to pay for a wordpress blog for using much too space….
1. All along I have maintained that Everyone is entitled to their opinion which includes Pradyuman, you and ME. Pradyuman’s line of arguement is that since he was associated with the team in all victories makes him a great… well it is his opinion and he says he agrees with me mostly, so I have nothing more to say (just as I have nothing left to say to you, but clearly you need a bit more explaining)
2. That I have reduced this to a one Vs One contest is clearly your perception and there is nothing for me to agree now…All I said was … sigh not again…
3. I have said time and again that your standards to set for greatness are clearly yours and perhaps in tune with the other people in the forum and as we have agreed (I presume because you did not disagree) would include Hussain, Atherton, Kirtsten… Would I agree to have Dravid in that lineup.. I think so too…
4. You cant see where I have agreed that Dravid is great, because I havent unless you can do a copy and paste job like you did couple of days back and pull it out of context
All of us can agree that everyone is entitled to their own opinions. The reason we are having this argument is not because you pointed out that Dravid has aberrations in his career record. Nope. My contention is this: a career spanning 15 years, 13000 runs, close to 28000 deliveries, 8 countries, several memorable innings, an undeniable part in historic test victories over the last decade, a remarkable career average, the respect of probably every opponent and peer, a wonderful record overseas and at home. And your answer to all this: poor record against Australia (that you later changed to an Australia with McGrath) and South Africa and your inference: Dravid is just another cricketer. If I were the exclaiming kind, I would say “pah!”. You are welcome to have your 130 match blindspot, of course.
Ah Identyless… So we are in agreement then… I agree with your contention that Dravid being great along with Hussain, Athers, Kirsten and undeniable respect from peers and oponents as have the others in your list …and of course those numbers which you initially said did not determine the greatness,but you ending up with that anyway… And my contention that in spite of those numbers, in 50 tests against his better opponents… now now, before you say I have come down from Toughest oponents to Better oponents as you seem to be a master at that (and thank goodness you are not the exclaiming kind)… let me correct that… In 50 tests aginast his toughest oponents, ie around 33% of his career he has scored only 4 centuries ie 11% and 16 runs less than his career average doesnt get him into my list
As for Mcgrath, If I remember correctly, you dragged him in with SRT’s average being 37 with pigeon around…And that part about Mcgrath being the symbol I am not even trying to go into that again…
Where is our ‘agreement’? Please point me to when I said Hussain, Athers and Kirsten are ‘great’. I am also very curious as to why you do not want to get into the McGrath angle. I think you pointed out that an Australia with McGrath is a much tougher opponent, hence my point that Sachin has a less than impressive average against that tougher Australian team. So, yes, I am very much interested in how your greats stack up, specifically, against McGrath, Donald and Pollock (names you mentioned).
And, yes, you have conveniently ignored several questions I have asked: were England/NZ/WI/Pak/SL such pushovers that India has regularly won matches in these countries? Did you know that teams like NZ/Pak/SL/England have actually been better than India in the test rankings for various periods and that India ranked way above SA for various periods, even before 2009? So, your points about matches against the ‘toughest’ should be a combination of all these teams and not just Australia and SA. You are just using these two teams because it helps you justify your notions. In reality, Dravid has an average of 41 against the only consistently tough opponent he faced (that is a measure of why Australia were great not why Dravid was bad). And a huge part in two important matches India won against that team. How easy were the Eden Gardens 180 and Adelaide 233, for instance? Were the runs so easy that anyone could have walked out with a bat and scored 180? That is a measure of Dravid’s tenacity and skill, not because Australia was an ordinary team then. You have glibly discredited these *important* knocks with a vague answer like Laxman was doing well at the other end and McGrath was not around. Sure, ignore them and what those knocks meant for a team that had rarely done well against Australia because it does not help your point. And, yes, Dravid has been very poor against SA and SL. That speaks more about how these teams managed to tackle Dravid, just like how India manged to keep Lara and Ponting under wraps when they visited.
Get the ‘big picture’ you have asked us all to look at. And if you want to come up with other numbers, make sure you look at *all* the numbers; not just the few that will take your little boat across the pond.
Identlyless,
I thought we had an agreement because your parting sentence in the last post was I was happy to have my arguement and since you did not rebutt my privious post about Dravid being in the same league with Athers, Hussain, Kirsten, I thought we had an agreement as you dont seem to miss any arguement…
And for the last time, all those knocks were as difficult and tough as Hussain’s 94 against SA, Athers’ 195 in Joberg, Kirsten’s 275 against Eng, Azhar’s 102 in Basin Reserve..
I cant come up with more numbers because I do not have a playstation and cant get RD in the playstation to play more against SA and Aus and use my skill to get him to score more
So you have nothing to say on SA may not have been the toughest opponent? And I did not rebut because the names hardly seemed germane to the conversation. Even now I am questioning your numbers because with such arguments, *ALL* achievements can be rendered negligible. Dravid is just incidental to my arguments and because we are discussing this on Sidvee’s wonderfully written reflection on Dravid (can’t understand why I never mentioned this before).
Should I say, I have “nothing more” to say about SA and Aus.. With my arguements all achivements are negligible?
SRT – Very good record against SA and Aus – Tick
Glenn Mcgrath – Very good everywhere including exceptional in India – tick
Malcom Marshall – ———do ——————– – Tick
Wasim Akram – tick
Allan Donald – ——–do————— – Tick
B C Lara – tick
Warne – Very good everywhere except against INdia – Tick
And about SA not being the toughest oponents because of the ranking system?? The jury is out on the ranking system. There were times when Gambhir was the highest ranked batsman, Vengsarkar was the highest ranked batsman when it first came out… The rankings are should I say just rankings…
And hopefuly this time you would be with peace with yourself
SRT – His average in SA is still 14 runs less than his career average. Pakistan (an extremely tough opponent if ever there was one)?
McGrath – Great average. Check his WPM in India and SL. Exceptional record though.
Akram – Minor blemish against England. But exceptional overall.
Marshall – Agreed. But what did he compete against?
Donald – Agreed. Very small blemish against Australia, the only other ‘tough’ opponent.
Lara – Exceptional against India?
Warne – You’ve pointed out the aberration yourself.
Check Kallis, Muralitharan. Sampras, Federer, Agassi, McEnroe. Steve Waugh as captain. All should make interesting case study.
Every great player has an asterisk. If you choose to ignore the “Conditions Apply” only if they came against Australia/SA, I have nothing more to say (which is what I meant earlier). That’s just not cricket (I did have one more thing to say, I guess).
Deepak,
Sachin, when he recently spoke of the bowlers he feared, said it varies from series to series and it is always not the star bowler who bowls the best. The best example is Sachin’s 91 in Trentbridge 2007. The bowler who troubled him the most was Ryan Sidebottom. Years later, someone will diss it as being against an average bowler. But that is to forget the fact that Sidebottom bowled seriously well in that period and especially in England. Harmison, Jones, Hoggard & Flintoff ranged from average to good bowlers. Swann, Anderson, Broad may well become great bowlers one day. But even forgetting the context which of Ponting’s centuries were better – 156 @ Old Trafford, 2005 or the one at Cardiff, 2009 ? Clearly, the former as that was an attack at its peak and the later was an inexperienced attack that was finding its feet. In future, if Bresnan ends up as a poorer bowler than Flintoff, would the 2009 bowling attack be considered more dangerous than the 2011 bowling attack in hindsight ? Similarly, the Gillespie who bowled in 2004 in India wasn’t the same one in 2005 in Ashes. I am not sure how can one infer definitively that the bowling was poor on a given day purely from the scorecard without watching the match. Very few bowlers have struck greatness early and maintained it consistently but great many fluctuate. In such case, I am not sure if overall statistical record is a good enough marker to say that on a certain day the bowling attack was weak.
On Warne, his average in WI is 39. So tick everywhere except India and WI ! Why should all of Warne’s performances against England, NZ & SA be considered ? Weren’t there some atrocious player of spin in those teams ?
Yogesh,
I think in SRT’s list of “feared” bowlers would possibly include Aqib Javed, Dion Nash, Cronje and anyone making his debut.. “Very few bowlers have struck greatness early and maintained it consistently but great many fluctuate” so very true… and so very true for batsmen too…Which is why somewhere I wrote, Hirwani isnt a great bowler becuase he had a great debut or RD is a useless cricketer becuase he scored 93 runs in 99/00 in the whole series. Which is also what Identlyless sadly did not grasp when I said Mcgrath was a symbol of what the attack was as it seemed to lift the bowling ( 2 matches that Aus lost in 2005 Ashes – Wasnt Mcgrath missing?) just as Zaheer does with India’s.. As for Warne having a poor record in WI, my memories are on the then new technology Spin VIsion constantly showing us his different grips on the 95 tour. You are right about his record against atrocious players of spin, but you leave out SL and Pak which are not so atrocious…Flintoff and Harmison arnt great bowlers because they had such a short career… I think for greatness, fitness is important too which leads to longevity
Deepak,
You are missing Tendulkar’s point. His point was that on a given day, it isn’t necessarily the star bowler who is bowling the best. It could be an ordinary bowler who is having his day out in the sun. That is why Sachin vs Sidebottom is relevant. Anderson is a greater bowler than Sidebottom. But on the third day in Trentbridge 2007, the bowler who was bowling seriously well was Sidebottom and Anderson was bowling crap. Today, i can look at the scorecard and say that, the one good bowler in that side was bowling crap and so it must have been easy for India. But that is to miss the point that Sidebottom bowled a terrific spell and Tendulkar gritted his way through it. Another case in the point is Ishanth Sharma vs Ponting. Ishanth Sharma might end up as an average bowler but to conclude from that Ponting struggled against an average bowler is a gross misjudgement. On those days (especially Perth), Ishanth bowled as good as anyone else to Pnting. So, i don’t agree with the argument that the bowling attack was Hoggard, Flintoff, Tudor & Giles and so it must have been easy pickings. When & where too matter. More precisely, was it Headingley 2002 or Sydney 2007 ?
Agreed that Flintoff & Harmison aren’t great bowling. But thatcannot be used to say that scoring against them is always easier than scoring against Mcgrath & Warne. As sidvee put, the context and the pitch matters. Was it Headingley 2005 or MCG 2007 ? That is the reason i pointed out to the difference between bowling attacks in Ashes 2005 & Ashes 2009. The latter might/can end up as a greater attack because of consistency & longevity but it is clear that it was difficult to face Flintoff & co in 2005 than Anderson & co in 2009.
dangerous across all pitches.
I am not missing Tendulkar’s point, but merely telling frailties… I think you might be missing my point. Mcgrath is a metaphor for good bowling attack and please do not look at it objectively. I am reminded of Boycott’s comment on the super over bowled by Mike Holding when he played and missed 5 balls and got out to the last… he said if it was someone else batting, England would have 0/6. While you say and I agree, Ishant bowled as well as anyone, you should give credit to Pointing for hanging in there and almost seeing off the spell which thanks to Viru was extended to that over…
While you think Hoggard, Flintoff, Giles, Tudor and Cork might have bowled well, Sidvee tells to look at the conditions and not the bowlers… What I am saying is in spite of the conditions, the bowling was ordinary (with Hussain’s penchant to bounce Indian batsmen out)… What about Sydney 2007 and MCG 2007?
The last point is the point that interests me…
Knowing what we know now, How does an attack of Tudor/ Cork/ Caddick/ Hoggard/Flintoff or Gilespie/Williams/Bichel/Macgill or AKthar/Kaneria/Sami/Akbar stand out? And please do not tell me when RD got all those runs they bowled as well anyone in the world… and as for the last, the conditions were flat and the bowlign was easy and Pakistan had folded up for 233…
If you are telling me that those innings were in the same league as Lax’s 96 in Durban or Sachin’s 169 at Newlands (58/5 chasing 600) or BC Lara’s 156 in Barbodos or Mark Waugh’s 110 at Newlands
Before anyone points out Sachin’s 169 Vs RD 233 and talk about conditions and all that (58/5 that included Venky Prasad and 85/4), the bowling was AD, Pollock, Klusner (not the medium pace off cutter bowler) and Mcmillan and comming from the previous innings of 66 all out…And if someone says Newlands was flat, I agree… But since the context and what not was brought in…
We lost the match
That is right… By a big margin
“Knowing what we know now”, were Klusener & Mcmillan great bowlers ? What about Mcdermott, Hughes, Whitney & Reiffel in Perth 1992 ?
Mcgrath as a metaphor for a great bowling attack – Which is to say that everytime Mcgrath was in an Aussie team they bowled better than any other attack ?
How many centuries did Tendulkar score against a great bowling attack – 4. 2 against Mcgrath-Warne, 1 vs Donald-Pollock (flat track with a Azhar special), 1 vs Akram & co. The 124 at Chennai had quite a few 50s by others and hence by your Rawalpindi-Dravid argument (Check the below 100 scores in Chennai 2001 and Rawalpindi 2004), it was a flat pitch where all top order got starts and just that nobody except Sachin carried on.
So with that stringent criteria of a bowling attack with great bowlers (not required to bowl well on that day), tough pitch and solo knocks, i wonder how many of Tendulkar’s knocks qualify ? I can think of only 116 @ MCG, 136 @ Chennai. I think pretty much any batsman would have only a couple or so knocks like that.
Why do you judge Laxman’s 96 now itself ? If Morkel & Tsotsobe become greater (worser) bowlers, does Laxman’s 96 increase (decrease) in value posthumously ? Then why pronounce the judgement, when you are using overall career greatness as a measure for the quality of the bowling attack.
How about Kallis in Newlands 2011 ? Do you wait for Zak, Sreesanth, Bhajji & Ishanth to finish their careers before proclaiming a verdict on that knock ? Again, we need to know overall career greatness before talking about the quality of the attack & so……….
Sorry Sidvee for spamming your blog..
Please don’t say ‘sorry’ for indulging in a debate. That’s one of the main reasons why this blog exists 🙂
Ijaz Ahmed, Anwar, Butcher (!) have more 100’s against Mcgrath. Azhar Mahmood (!!) has more 100s against Donald. Hussain has more 100s than Tendulkar against both teams. Now I have to think about who my all time great batsmen are again. All those years spent making up my mind down the drain 😦
Deepak, thanks for providing me an opportunity to think.
Yogesh,
In all the din, a few things that I said earlier have missed out… I did say RD’s innings at Kingston when he played against Corey Colleymore, Jerome Taylor and Ian Bradshaw who are by no ones imagination the great bowlers was a great innings…So I am with you when you say the bowlers are just as good as they are on the day… So too about his innings this summer which as you admit are not great bowlers yet…
The thing about Mcgrath and I cant explain this anymore is that he is a metaphor for good bowling. You ask me if when Mcgrath was around did the Ausies bowl better… They did, dint they? Similar case for Zaheer and the indian bowlers. How about Kallis in Newlands… A great knock… But was also aided by the indian captian and the premier spinner in the second innings when they set a cover point for the reverse sweep. So no, I wouldnt wait for Zaheer and co to finish their careers to tell that it is great…And about Laxman’s innings of 96… Morkel might become a consistently good bowler, but on the day Morkel and Tsotsobe were very good…While you are right in saying you can count such innings on your finger tips… but there are a number of batsmen who otherwise are not great or destined for greatness who have produced such innings… like Atherton’s 195 or Hussain’s 94 or dare I say Afridi’s 141 in Chennai or Azhar’s 102 in the basin reserve..Do I think RD’s innings in Headingley was good? yes.. Was it great.. er no.. the bowling wasnt great, not even on its day..So is the case in Adelade and Pindi which led to my comment that till now RD’s so called great innings have been against not great bowling other than the one in Kingston and this summer. What seperates out the truly great from good cricketers is that they seem to have a better record against such bowling attacks (they always get a good score irrespective of what others do or did). Now this might not mean they have a slew of centuries or have batted brilliantly when others havent as you rightly pointed out about Sachin’s 130 against Aus in chennai when there were more good scores.. But there was also 2 little gems in mumbai one tragically cut short by a freak dismissal when no one else good get the ball of the sqaure in the Indian innings..
Deepak, metaphorically assuming mcg and don were exceptional bowlers, dravid and sachin have almost same average against them (33.6 to 34.3). How did you decide sachin has a better record against such bowling attacks?
Skaued mate, If you dint get what I want to say in all the big list of comments, I cant try anything more..I will be repeating myself and I do not like reruns that much
Another thing missed in the din… I did not state that RD’s innings in Pindi wasnt great because others also had got 50s.. But Sidvee suggested that no other batsmen scored 80 !!. and therefore the conditions were tough !! I know 80 is less than a third of 270, but 80!! and there were couple of 70s and Partiv’s 69 and yuvraj’s 47…I had to bring up those numbers only to justify the conditions werent tough… But Sidvee 80!!?
Ha. Looks like it’s been a long time since I made that comment. That was one of the several things that made it great, not the only. But most of all, it was a 270 in a series-winning cause in a country where we had never won before. Headingley was in a match we won and leveled the series. Adelaide was in a match we won and took a series lead. Kingston was in a series-winning match. It won us a series for the first time in 35 years. The Kolkata 180 was in a match we won after following-on (of course Laxman’s was the greater innings but the 180 was vital). It stopped Australia’s 16-match winning streak. You may not understand this but these were huge occasions, they needed someone to stand up and they needed a defining performance. And therein lies his greatness. And while we can continue debating the bowling averages of who he played against, my standards for greatness are based on a macroscopic view rather than a more microscopic one we are debating. Thanks
That is fair enough
While I agree with your point of view and your assessment, I cant beleive you still hold on to that 80 and consider one of the things that made it great…80 is a fairly decent score… I would have given it to you if there was only one other 80 like in Viru’s innings of 201 in Galle where GG scored around 50…
What I meant was: it was a totally stand-out performance and not as if he made 270 with two others making 150+ scores
Sidvee, excellent points. A player’s contribution should be considered in the larger context of what it meant for the team and fans. The importance and relevance of Adelaide, Kolkata (duly accepting the immense importance of Laxman’s contributions) or even J’burg when Dravid was still a greenhorn have to be seen in this context. While Dravid was at his very best in the recent series, Dravid fans and a lot of fans of Indian cricket will always hold Adelaide and Kolkata dear.
I still find it hard to contemplate that someone could write of all these with a casual bad bowling sort of excuse. These were AMONG the knocks that defines what Indian Test cricket is today.
Sidvee,
Adding one thing to the macroscopic view is the number of crucial partnerships Dravid has been involved. If one just looks at Dravid’s statguru page, it will never tell about his partnernships. Something made me think of Sachin vs Pakistan yesterday. Well, of course you know why. Somehow my mind went to Lahore ODI, 2006. Though, i couldn’t find the highlights on youtube, i found the post-match discussion between Manjrekar, Nasser & Imran with snippets of the match in between. It was just great and that match to me kind of captures Dravid’s value. The batting scorecard will show a 95, 79 and a 72 of 46 balls but hidden in it will be a 72 of 99 balls – the Tendulkar-Dravid partnership. People who look at scorecards later will not realize its value but those who watched it (Cricinfo report says you were one) will not forget its value. Imran, Nasser and Sanjay were unanimous that if either one of Sachin-Dravid hadn’t survived (one beautifully and the other ugly) that great opening spell of Asif-Gul, India would have been 4-5 down easily. A bit like Boycott vs Holding. I think there are many such partnerships where Dravid’s “ugly” role is very very underrated. I think Day 1, Jo’Burg 2006 is also another match where the Sachin-Dravid partnership is not given its due credit. Compare with Centurion 2010 and one can see why ! Coincidentally, even in Jo’Burg all batsmen got starts but none went on. But that was more a reflection of the pitch than the failings of the batsmen.
I think, there are no suprises that everyone in the Fab 5 enjoys batting with Dravid. I cannot think which other Indian batsman in the line-up has had so many great partnerships with everyone else.
Glad to know that you don’t demand an apology for writing my opinion 🙂
Yeah right… sidvee
Apologies for a comment that is unrelated to the post. I came across these two Dravid gems on Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x_3zT8n6Ltc and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a4HumMKCLiE Just wanted to forward them since I know that you like these innings a lot.